


from nine to one

by jarofactonbell



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, Very Bad Humour, haikyuu au, half sports a quarter angst and three quarters useless banter, i don't think slow burn describes how slow this is, just me rambling, stray kids playing volleyball and bullying each other, tentative cameos from twice GOT7 the boyz and yg silver boys, the product of me angsting over haikyuu, this is not a very deep fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-08 07:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16425407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: “Just like Heracles whose existence was driven by the feats he must complete, we who choose this path must also complete Herculean labours to first and foremost, ascertain that we deserve to pursue this path, and that no labours are impossible feats for us who stand as one.” Chan stops and looks at his team.Hyunjin eloquently echoes an empty and exhausted "What" at him.“So,” Minho tips his head to one side, “nothing is impossible if we stand as a team?”“I mean,” Felix frowns, “It's kinda...necessary? We're playing a team sport?”“I'm never making speeches for you ungrateful lump of potatoes ever again,” Chan declares.“Stop trying for fake deep,” Jisung mocks.“If anything is Herculean, it'll be managing you children,” Woojin sighs.(Or Stray Kids, high school volleyball and labouring in the vague legacy of their seniors, Heracles and their own)





	1. The first task: Slay the Nemean Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Jenny, I hear you ask, don't you have an exam LIKE FUCKING SOON, I hear you ask.
> 
> (Yes I do, it's on Wednesday, but I've accepted that I'll fail anyway, and this had been sitting in my basement for twenty thousand years, and I'm back and enjoying the Haikyuu life again - so I said so myself, might as well yeet this one into the internet and have others who might love both Haikyuu and Stray Kids scream about this with me)
> 
> IT'S GOING TO BE VERY LONG SO I'M WARNING YOU BEFOREHAND THAT I WRITE BAD AND THINK BAD AND CAN'T SPORT OR FEELINGS SO BE WARNED
> 
> (Did ya like the Survival Show reference I did - because keep in mind, that's the story, how nine becomes one)  
> Other than that, proceed at your own risk.

**Situation:** After the loss at Interhigh.

**Condition:** Exhausted beyond human capacity. 

There is no word that can get through the buzz in their heads and ears. They didn’t have enough firepower to blast through the tight defence of the other side. Receives after receives - all spikes sent their way - picked up too readily. Too many receives, too stable, too much of everything happening all at once. They weren’t able to regroup and hit back with the capacity they could have done - they couldn’t -

“Chan,” Bambam grips his friend’s shoulder, squeezing to the bone underneath. “Do not do the thing.”

“What thing?” Chan's face scrunches up in a certainty to an uncontrollable sob.

“ _ That  _ thing,” Bambam pats his hair gently. “The crying thing. None of that, shush now.”

"None of this crying,” Yugyeom crouches down at Chan’s sprawled form on the floor, smiling gently. “Our future captain can’t look too miserable in front of the first years.”

“Ew,” Changbin chimes in helpfully. “You look gross at all. Even more than usual.”

Chan sniffs, long and hard. “That’s bullying. You’re all bullies. I’m going to set terrible tosses to you and you won't be able to hit them at all.”

Bambam laughs, tears in his voice. “Ah, you’ll be right, Channie. You got this.”

Changbin sees that it’s the appropriate moment for him to step outside, leaving the trio to mourn the chances they couldn't reach - or something equally sentimental. He turns away, soles squeaking, dragging Hyunjin with him. 

“Captain! Bambam-hyung!” Hyunjin, their guaranteed core in blocking, now that Yugyeom is leaving, raises his arm in the air, a picture of a proper schoolboy. He hinders Changbin's determination in a prompt and dignified exit so that they can leave Chan with his close friends and teammates, swinging his outstretched hand in the air, stubborn in being heard. 

Yugyeom and Chan turn their heads to him. The retiring captain still upholding the burden of responsibility, posture upright and taut, lines of stress imprinted on the very way he moves. Chan is a snivelly and snotty mess, eyes and cheeks blotchy red. He sniffs, long and scratchy, throat moving a gravel ‘Yeah, kid?’ at Hyunjin. Bambam digs an elbow into his side, laughing.  _ Are you answering for me now, Chris? _

The blocker grips the strap of his bag, feeling the material dig into the groove of his fingers. He bows, bangs falling.

“Thank you for this year! We were more than honoured that you led us to where we are now!”

“What’s with this kid, really,” Bambam grins. “It’s been an honour too, Hyunjinnie.”

“If you don’t crush those boys over in the southern district, then what is the point,” Yugyeom grins, an edge of teasing in his tone.

“That is part of the club’s goal, yes,” Hyunjin blinks, sarcasm bouncing off him at a regular interval at this point. “Why must you tell me something obvious.”

“I'm gonna miss ya, kid,” Bambam nods at him. “All those jokes and sarcasm bouncing off ya like a coupla of good blocks? Iconic. I'll carry the memories of your cluelessness into college.”

“Erm...thank you?”

“Alright,” Yugyeom stands, wearied, but resolute. A departing speech.  _ There's always next year _ rings in the air. They brace themselves. “It’s been a fun year, kiddos. We lost more than we won, but don’t let the consuming depression thoughts carry on to next year. I know we have a good foundation here, and we can make it further than we are now next year with the lead of our future third years. You’re going to be a team, a family, a band of brothers, so I expect nothing but solid teamwork whenever I hear about you in university, you hear that, boys?”

“Your speech is so shitty,” Chan wipes his eyes. “I’m crying because of how bad it is.”

“Cap, I’m so moved,” Minho clutches the right side of his chest. “Like, honestly, so moved.”

“That’s not where your heart is,” Bambam points out.

Minho's face splits into a shit eating grin, deeming no further explanation. 

“Such a shitty liar, Minnie,” Yugyeom hacks out a laugh, a sincere one.

“Wait, did we lose Woojinnine?” Changbin looks around and barely dodges a flying spike, clipping his ear and crashing onto the wall behind them. “I THOUGHT YOU WENT TO THE BUS, HYUNG, I’M SORRY PLEASE DON’T HURT ME -”

Woojin spares him a quick disappointing glance, before bowing to the leaving third years. “We’ll make you proud, hyung.”

Bambam turns to Yugyeom. “Damn, why didn’t we make Woojin the captain?”

Chan wails even louder, even as Bambam apologises to him.  _ We're joking, we're joking Channie! _

  
  
  


A little background **:** Jin Young Park Academy has a reigning female volleyball team and a graduated group of formidable male volleyball players. The volleyball club peaked at a point, slotting a place at nationals and returning as the 7th best male high school volleyball team in the country. 

Those who attend here half heartedly wonder, by the graduation of all the fearsome GOT7 team members, how the newly revamped club could continue the legacy left behind by the male volleyball team.  

**The climate** : Humid, with a chance of rain. 

The new third years are very well aware of the weight of expectations. In the realms of probability, they  _ could  _ care, but the matter of they  _ doing  _ it is up to debate. In the summer before school starts, they are already practicing tirelessly. There is literally not enough time to care about petty rumours, because they’re too busy.

**The current climate:** Moody, with a chance of heavy rain

Practice takes precedent and Chan maintains the standard of the club, spurring the five of them to work harder and better. Runs turn into marathon races, bruises are cut into arms and bones, shoes are worn down because of the intensity in which they have to cut across the court and the jumps they must take. There is no time between strategising and practicing and studying to really comprehend that there are external expectations aside from their departing seniors that they ought to do well.

Their routine goes as follow - 

First - 

Chan pushes for better and better tosses, contorting his spine to perform back tosses, boundary tosses, calculating the trajectory midair, on the ground, off the court. He barely sleeps, watches over old matches of old opponents, wakes up early to run, pushes himself harder than he does everyone else.

His eye bags are concerning - and the other third years, Minho and Woojin, for  _ they  _ are third years now, oldest and more experienced than the ones coming - they push him to rest, to take care of himself. Some days they even care for him, afraid that Chan will run himself to the ground with the increased effort and manic drive to  _ do better be better,  _ with nothing quite in the way except the team to hinder his barrelling path to ruination.

Second -

Hyunjin jumps higher and moves across the net faster, fingers stiff and bruised in all shades of the rainbow. He smiles more, wide and earnest, despite all the pain that comes with blocking Woojin's monster spikes or twisting to accommodate Changbin's propensity to pull off impossible feats in the air. He remains guileless, as he is and had always been, a constant rock in their crumbling teamwork.  _ It'll be alright. I'll spam the ball back down onto the other side of the net. You guys don't need to watch my back. _

But they worry nevertheless. Hyunjin is skilled and enormously talented and dedicated to blocking any assortment of offense in the air, but he is one person - and if any of their matches had taught them anything, it's that spikers come in minimum of two now, and Hyunjin only has himself and two arms to fend off a possibility of two spikers set on pushing the ball onto their side of the court. 

Third -

Changbin practices his cross and straight spikes, increasing the irregularity of his attacks. He jumps even higher than he could pull off the year before, shooting to an inhuman 338 cm at peak reach - some days even shooting past the height Hyunjin and his blocking form hunker over, spikes zipping by Hyunjin and his long arms. He and Chan move as if they are one person - synced up on each other's jumps and signals, formations devised from long years of playing together and natural chemistry between spiker and setter. He trains too with Woojin to spike harder and with Minho, to pull impossible stunts in the air, so that serves or spikes, they cannot be touched by the opponents on the other side. 

Some days he can't feel his right fingers and sometimes the team has to sit him out and sit on him to stop his obsessive streak on spiking practices - he insists, begs - 

_ But if I don't practice now when will I ever practice? I don't rest, guys, let me go. _

They don't let him go, but he manages to sleep less and eat little and persist on practicing when their eyes are not on him. 

Fourth -

Woojin spikes harder, spikes spinning at an emphasis of strength, trains more with Hyunjin to improve their blocking formation. Eventually he comes to the acceptance that the team, they as one unit, do not need another spiker. They need someone who is a reliable pillar of defensive support. They need someone who fills in the gaps rather than someone who is contributing to surplus.

It pained him, but he ceases practice on spiking and instead invests in receives, one after another, tirelessly and infinitely, compensating for the lack of a libero and a gaping hole in their defense. Their offense is formidable, but they are reminded, time and again, that their receives are deplorable. Chan and Woojin bear that burden, tirelessly diving and chasing serves and spikes, determined to not  _ lose sight of the ball. _

Changbin called them  _ neurotic _ on more than one occasion, but he sent harder and trickier spikes onto every open spot he can spy on top of the net, to test the extent of their tenacity. Blocks that came off the tips of Hyunjin's fingers. Spikes that come at the snap of the wrist, diagonal from the net, to the boundary line, on the boundary line, spikes with the weight of Changbin and his might to improve - all of these, Woojin and Chan brace themselves for the point of contact, where ball meets forearms and ricochet up to Minho who indulges them in tossing, his form a point of stability, of trust.

Woojin can't quite gather his grip on kendo swords during that summer - and he still wakes sometimes because of the looming nightmare - the ball hitting ground and he’s there, an immovable object. 

Fifth -

Minho practices his serves on them as well - jump floats, spike serves, float serves - puts a maddening spin on them, manipulates the trajectory so that his serves are untouchable. They dive all over the court, scrambling after a tricky float serve here and a spike serve there - and in Minho's ever present cocky smirk, there's the tinge of exhaustion that if no one pay close attention to, goes almost undetected.  
  


 

It’s going to rain in this sweltering heat. The season is heavy upon their shoulders. 

Chan, Hyunjin and Changbin have been arranging their setter-blocker-spiker practice sessions every weekend, clashing with the district and regional games. It’s not planned, this clash - and Chan most of all berates himself for not foreseeing this overlap. 

Minho and Woojin reassure him that all would work out right.

“How?” Chan quirks a disbelieving eyebrow, the one with the slit.

There are too many people who clash in practice and too little in their numbers for a proper game. There are no male team in sight for practice matches - the graduated seniors are all scattered about and unavailable for practice matches. Thus, Minho and Woojin volunteer. To scout. They are to take a break from all the numbing and not effective practice and find a different approach - something that can improve their skill set without the need for a practice match or a full team. So Woojin and Minho have been tirelessly travelling on buses and trains to drop by district games and regional competitions, recording videos from the middle row and taking notes for Chan to scrutinise when they report back to him.

It rains occasionally, when they catch the bus back to the school gym.

Chan thanks them for the notes, and the team pores over the potential. They draw a list of names, of hopeful players in the coming school year. Jeongin. Allen. John. Seungmin.  Lee Daehwi. Moon Bin. Felix. Jisung. All talented and would fit into the dynamics of the current members.

“Lee Daehwi is a dead guarantee with Stone’s Private, don’t you know?” Momo had mentioned in passing to Minho, when they were stretching in their joint weekend dance class 

“He went to Jin Young Park’s middle school though?” He looked up through his bangs. Stupid hair. It ought to all come off.

“Stone has a reputation. People all want to attend there,” she rolled her eyes, arching her back. “Don’t turn it into something that it’s not. I just heard from Somi and I know that you’ve been keeping an eye out on them since the district games. It’s just -”

“- hard to guarantee where the middle schoolers will go in high school, I know,” he slapped himself in the face, blinding his eyes a little from the shock. “I’m trying not to be too salty about it.”

“It’s really rough. I’m sorry, buddy,” she thumped him in the back once, powerful spiking swing going straight through his spine and ribs - and spent the rest of the class laughing at Minho doubling over and complaining about  _ my bones you broke my bones Hirai.  _

It rains, sticky and sweaty, when he bikes to the gymnasium, Hyunjin clinging onto his waist with an umbrella over their head, clothes completely drenched as he navigates through the empty street. 

“Hyung?” He remembers their youngest asking him, squeezing his side. “It's not your fault.”

“I know,” he tells the kid, trying to convince himself and Hyunjin that he's got it under control.

Maybe repeating it with enough times will make the lie true. 

  
  


The list of Hopeful First Year dwindles. 

They try not to beat themselves too much about it. 

It’s something they can’t control, no matter how much they want to. There are no guarantee that these kids will come to JYP, even though there is promise that they could  _ they might maybe they will.  _ There is a circle of freshly rained on high school boys, and they ponder on what is the next step.

“Wanna watch an old ma -” Changbin suggests, and two pairs of eyes,  _ Woojin and Minho,  _ cut to him. “Or we could sit around and split watermelon. I have a watermelon in my bag. Woojin-hyung can cut it for us.”

“Why is it my responsibility?” Woojin huffs, even though he already is up and heading to the lump of sports bags scattered near the equipment room. “How did you even  _ carry _ this thing to practice?”

“I just carried it in my backpack, two straps over the shoulder, equal distribution of weight!” Changbin calls out.

Woojin frowns skeptically. 

“Sorcery?” Changbin amends. 

“You're stronger than I remember, Binnie.”

“Why do I feel like that's such a backhanded comment?”

“Take it how you will, shortie spiker.”

“ _ Mean, hyungie, mean!” _

Hyunjin inches closer to Chan, blinking at how still he seems to be getting. 

“Cap. Cap’n. Captain.”

Their glorious leader doesn’t respond. 

“Bang Chan. Christopher Bang. Kangaroo Man. Hello. Earth to Our Glorious Leader,” the blocker prods the setter now, impassive in his crossed leg position, eyes affixed at a random spot on the floor. 

“Chris,” Woojin says. Waits.

Chan lifts his head slowly, eyes glazed over, but they focus when the two oldest members make eye contact. 

“Yeah?” The captain croaks, sounding not quite himself.

“We’re going to play a practice match with the girls,” Woojin judges the edge of the long Thai knife they keep in stock at the back of the shelves in storage, for emergencies like  _ cutting people out from nets  _ or  _ special effects for ghost stories time at their sleepover in the gym _ or  _ cutting fruits.  _

They are  _ emergencies _ , alright, and the club needs to be sufficiently equipped to deal with any of those given scenarios. Hence the knife.

(It was Woojin’s idea to stash the knife and multiple other kitchen utensils in storage - sometimes they cook in the gym when it gets dark out and they’re too exhausted to go home - Chan and Minho cook the best chowder.)

“The girls?” Hyunjin reacts first, hugging his biceps, most likely remembering the last time he went up against Momo and Mina’s fearsome double spike attack. “They scare me. They’re really really  _ really _ good.”

“You didn’t need three reallys to emphasise that,” Changbin points out, lazing about on the floor. “We know they’re good. They're the pride and glory of our school.”

“Pride and glory aside, did you get hit by their double spiking duo? No, no, you haven’t!” Hyunjin wails, lobbing his towel at Changbin’s face. “Don’t downplay my suffering,” he finishes, sniffing.

Their spiker just wrinkles his nose and rolls away from the offending material, rolling towards Chan and hitting a stop at his knee.

Chan absently pats his cheek twice without looking down, somehow not missing erroneously and poking an entire eye out. 

“Deal,” he smiles, tiredness bleaching into his dyed blonde tips. “Do we get to pick a player on their side or do we just get anyone?”

“Details,” Woojin flutters his wrist. “What's important is that we don't sulk and spiral into the depression hole and procrastinate our way to the new school year. None of the  _ carrying team burden on my back _ rubbish from any of you, especially you, Chris, I'm looking at you and your reflection on this knife I'm holding. We are going to make the seniors proud by functioning as a team, not as how ever many people jumping around on a court with no sense of unity. It's a team sport, and we are going to play,  _ as a team _ ,” Woojin looks up, gesturing widely from snickering Minho to sulking Chan to starfish spread Changbin and overdramatic Hyunjin. “Understood, underoos?”

A myriad of protests crop up -

“Why are we  _ your _ underoos?” Minho complains. 

“I don't want to be an underoo!” Hyunjin stresses. 

“Cap, assert your dominance.” Changbin slaps Chan's knees a couple of times.  

Only Chan breaks out of the terrible sadness and tragedy episode he has happening and smiles indulgently at them all. “But I am an underoo to Woojin-hyung.”

Changbin and Minho boo at him simultaneously while Hyunjin suggests that they swap jerseys  _ since the real Captain here is Woojin hyung, let's stop lying to ourselves, aight? _

Woojin watches over all of this row with barely a twitch in his eye. He wipes the knife with a handkerchief, wrapping it under all the protective layers it came out from. 

“Watermelon for the rowdy minions!” He heaves up a tray, carrying it over and plopping it in the middle of their crooked and loosely termed semicircle, slices of watermelon sit in a loose and crooked circle too, fruit still edible despite it molding in Changbin's gym bag. 

“Thank you for existing, Unofficial Captain,” Hyunjin tells him and swallows whole a slice of watermelon, juice dripping down his shirt collar. 

“That's the stuff,” Changbin heaves himself up and leans heavily on Chan's side, biting into the fruit. 

“You sound like you're taking crack,” Minho purses his lips at the spiker, picking up a slice.

“This is crack to me,” Changbin hotly defends, reaching to smack the boy, but failing to, as Woojin and Chan reach in between them and separate the squabble. “Let me at him,  _ come on!”  _

“This team is already falling apart,” Chan laughs, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Good! I don't want to be on the same team as him!” Changbin points at Minho. “Snakey liar!”

“I'm so heartbroken I could hear my non-existent heart rattle in my chest,” Minho intones blandly, and ducks another slap his way. “Take this creature away, he's all violence and slaps! Don't laugh at me, traitors, take him away!” 

Woojin laughs through his bite into the watermelon and Hyunjin winks at Chan, reaching for another slice.

Outside, the rain stops.

  
  


**Current concern:** Find a coach.

They come to prioritise this concern after the match with the girl's volleyball team.

They've played rallies with the girls, they've exchanged useful tactics and dirty tricks, they've practiced well enough by themselves prior to the match with the help of manager Jimin slash Jamie. Who keeps lording it over their heads. Her  _ I shouldn’t be at school right now but I am and I’m helping you losers so y’all better improve or I’m whooping your asses into next century  _ is a constant refrain they can’t escape from - they love her, really, they do - they’ve bought her love and tolerance in their collective weights in confectioneries, but the fact doesn’t change - 

There is no coach to further their progress. 

There had been a valiant effort on their side during the match - but glaring defeat was still hard to swallow. It’s all nice and all since it’s a practice match, but they’re missing blockers and a libero and no matter how long and fast Chan and Woojin can dive and receive, they still can’t bridge that gap of skills between JYP Not Yet To Go National and National Girl’s Team.

Jihyo gently reassured them that with proper guidance and experience, they would be able to function better and more cohesively.

Hyunjin had tried not to scream. 

Later on, Woojin tried and failed to calm Minho, who’s been livid since the other manager had suggested they  _ pop back to the gym with their coach and regroup.  _

In case it wasn’t obvious, there is no coach. There was never a coach.  

The National team had a captain who doubled as their coach as the school assigned one progressively became busier and didn't turn up at all for practice sessions, then matches and games. It became a sort of tradition for the graduates to return and mentor the current team as best as they could with the time that they have. It's an incredibly monumental sacrifice to ask of their weary seniors, so the team stashed that option away as Last Resort, in the absolute detrimental situation that there is indeed, no coach around.

“Do volleyball coaches just hang around in abundance?” Minho asks, as he and Chan round a corner to the gym.

There is a beat of silence. 

“Bang, I meant that as a rhetorical question,” He implores, wringing his hands in a gesture of open plea. “Literally there is nobody who wants to coach just hanging about in our direct vicinity, are there?” 

Chan turns to him. “I know a guy.”

“No,” Minho tells him.

“Yes,” Hyunjin and Changbin chorus as one being later when they ask, because Chan cares about things like  _ asking the team for their opinions  _ and  _ acting out in the best interests for the team _ like the disgustingly responsible captain that he always has been. 

_ “No,” _ Minho stresses, with so much stress that it’s a miracle that he’s able to stand with the mountain of stress culminating and weighing him down. “You can’t just assume this ‘guy’ will say yes. Have you talked? Have you asked him? Have you mentioned you play volleyball and you don’t have a coach? How do you know this will work?”

Chan opens his mouth, but all that comes out is - “Huh. I don’t think I can say yes to any of those. Are they all rhetorical?”

_ “Yes you fuck, they all  _ **_are_ ** _.”  _

“Can you call him and ask, at least?” Woojin suggests, snuffling a few heads in towels. “Dry your own hair properly. You're going to get sick,” he scolds in the next breath. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“I’m sure that’s what SM told Oh Sehun too when they chased him down the street in an effort to ‘scout’ him,” Minho scoffs.

He turns to cut Changbin a particularly nasty look as the words leave his mouth. “No, we’re not implementing stalking techniques on a guy to make him our coach. We’ll call, text, whatever, once, and if it’s a ‘no’, we’ll move on. We can fare well by ourselves.”

Hyunjin emerges from his towel, nodding at him with big eyes. “Uh huh, hyung, sure we can manage. It’s exactly why we absolutely need a coach right now.”

In the time that they’re bickering, Chan quickly types out a message to Jimin and Jae and that message is passed along to Kang Younghyun, renowned setter of SNU at the Intercollegiate tournaments in the recent years, a physiotherapist intern and a research fellow in sports therapy. Not entirely retired from the sport, but his teammates have all moved to different parts of the country and he’s busy with his degrees, too much to juggle a semi-professional sport along with a fellowship. At college, one must care about important life matters such as their degrees, so Younghyun had put volleyball on a backseat and focus on attaining a qualification in sports therapy. 

Chan saw him play when Jimin and Jae were visiting him at his intercollege matches and he had lowkey idolised the man since the tosses he fluidly manoeuvred throughout the sets.

He had half a mind to contact Younghyun, but he didn’t have the guts to. Their situation is progressing to dire now, and they really don’t have a lot, or any, option to indulge themselves in the luxury of choice.

**Kang Younghyun:** Oh? JYP’s kids? That’s my alma mater. Gosh, you’re basically carrying on the legacy from way past then. 

**Kang Younghyun is typing** …

**Kang Younghyun:** I don’t have anything on tomorrow. Will head over to you lot and see how you play, then we’ll talk further arrangements. That alright with you, Chris?

He types back a quick -  _ thank you so much you are literally saving the team i owe you my life _

**Kang Younghyun:** All chill, kiddo. Tomorrow’s good? I’ll come in with Jae and Jimin, we’ll have a rally or two

_ yes please, omg kang-ssi, thank you so much!!!! _

**Kang Younghyun:** None of this Kang-ssi business. Call me hyung. I’ll see you soon, Chris ~~ 

He gets the last laugh as he shows the message exchange to his stunned teammates, whose expressions range from utter dismay to utter disbelief. Hmph. They ought not to doubt their captain. He’s able to take care of them at some point in time. Look, he even got them a coach!

“I can hear what you’re thinking, cap,” Hyunjin touches his arm gently. “You’re a great and noble man, glorious leader.”

Changbin chips in. “No, you gotta do the thing.”

“Ah yes,” Hyunjin’s face blanks over. “I owe my life to you, O’ Glorious Magnificent Leader Bang Chan.”

Chan gasps in utter betrayal while Woojin scolds Hyunjin mildly. 

“I raised you well,” Minho pats Hyunjin on the top of his head, from the towel. 

“I found us a coach and _ this is how you repay me?”  _ Chan’s gasp climbs up an octave. “I thought we operate on teamwork and solidarity and love and friendship -”

Minho coos at him and pats his cheek. 

“It’s cute that you think that, Channie.”

Chan slams him down in a swift judo pin, wailing about traitorous teammates and friends all the while Minho is slammed onto the linoleum, barely able to let out a surprised  _ oof! _

“Ah, down he goes,” Hyunjin continues to blandly commentate, caring a little to not at all. 

“A spectacular fall. Seven out of ten,” Changbin inches away from Minho, “three points taken off because I don’t like Minho or you.”

“That’s hyung for you, brat,” Minho wheezes from where Chan has a foot on his ribs. “Be careful with the merchandise, cap, don’t want me in tatters before our potential coach shows up.”

Woojin gathers all the towels in his arms. “You’re just giving him incentive to crush you even harder.”

Everyone pauses as Minho chokes and goes limp. Chan lifts his foot off the boy’s chest and immediately Minho twists and slams a palm onto the back of Chan’s knees. The captain hops in the air and comes back down a step away from Minho, sticking his tongue out in jest. 

Changbin claps once in mocking praise. Chan swears at him and lobs a folded towel his way. The spiker leans to the left of the trajectory of the flying projectile, and Woojin ends up with it in the pile in his arms, thanking Chan and Changbin sincerely.

“I hate you all,” Chan grinds out from his clenched rows of teeth.

“Love you too, boo,” Minho tells him from the floor.

  
  


Kang Younghyun arrives at the exact moment Woojin slams Changbin’s straight spike back onto the floor.

Jae whistles in appreciation. Jimin rolls her eyes as Woojin starts emitting shrill laughter at Changbin’s incredulous face. 

_ “Impossible! There was so much spin in that!”  _ The spiker screeches, then channels it to a shrill - “How's your arm? Is it alright?”

Hyunjin grabs an arm, squeezing, only for Woojin to bat him away with both arms functioning.

“The arm is okay, everyone, no one should be panicking!” He announces. 

“You're still too weak, Seo-ssi, it barely grazed me,” Woojin beams at Changbin who fumes and starts calling him unflattering names through the weaving of the net.

Hyunjin tunes their little bickering out of his ears and looks around for the clock, just to vaguely calculate how far they've gone since the morning. From the clock downwards, there are open doors. At the doors, there are people watching them bemusedly. 

_ Oh shit,  _ his brain goes. “Ah! Hello,” he throws himself quickly into a bow, before his brain proceeds to  _ people people people who heard us bickering people - _

Changbin's face scrunches into a foul frown, half way through yelling about how  _ nobody respect me on this team!  _ “Nobody freakin’ warned me - ”

“Hyung!” Chan bounces over to Jae and Younghyun. “Thanks for coming!” 

Kang Younghyun takes a long sweeping look at all five of them. He squints at Changbin critically. 

“Do that spike again.”

“Why,” he asks, but snaps into a jump for a run up and a spike formation as Minho tosses a ball in the air. 

The spike slams just a little over the net in a direct downward trajectory to the forecourt. Hyunjin and Woojin barely even flinch or glance at the spike that is controlled by Changbin to not hit them, ever, both their eyes squinting at the entourage of people, gauging their unseen potential in coaching teenage volleyball players. 

“You asked why but you just did it,” Hyunjin points at him over the net, snickering as Changbin gets this twitch in his eye and Minho has to seize him by the back of his collar. 

_ “Let me at him! Let me at him! Come on, hyung!” _

Jae fully has doubled over in screaming laughter ever since his foot touched the threshold into the gym. Jimin steers him away, leaving Younghyun to do whatever volleyball alumni need to carry out in order to mentor their alma mater team. For his part, he's been assessing the kids closely, with half an eye on Woojin and Changbin.

“Chris,” he flicks an eye over to the captain, “you're the captain.”

“Uh, yes. That’s me.”

“The setter. Bang Chan.”

_ “How'd he know?”  _ Minho mouths to Woojin who has picked up a ball, spinning it in his grip. 

Woojin directs his stare at Younghyun, sensing a...challenge of sorts heading their way. 

(The road to success isn't without difficulty.)

“You're good,” the alumnus tells him, an acknowledgment, not praise. “More than good.” Okay maybe that one is a praise. “I've only seen you played once, but you’ve got good form and sense.”

“You've seen me before?” Chan squints at him.

“When?” Woojin narrows his eyes. “We've never met before today.”

“Stalker man ~ stalker man ~ it's funny coz it's true ~” Minho breaks into song, to the tune of Stupid Death.

Hyunjin and Changbin slam respective hands over their mouths, as an immediate precaution. Laughter doesn’t seem to be very wise in that situation. Woojin pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling audibly, the humour for jokes essentially gone from his body. 

Jae and Jimin have no qualms about breaking into immediate laughter, because they’re not a part of the drama, and start howling at the stricken expression on Younghyun’s face.

_ “I’ve seen him at a middle school game -”  _ He protests hotly, stabbing his finger at the band of boys screeching in laughter at him.  _ “Stop slandering me!”  _ He shrieks at Minho.

The boy shrugs, eyes wide. “Just sayin’ it as it is, coach.”

“I’m not - there is no coaching to be done,” he hisses. “I thought you oppose to a coach, Lee.”

“See? Stalking activities. I’ve never seen you before in my life, how come you know I’m called Lee. I could be a Kim. I could be a Cho. Kwak. Park. Yang. The possibilities are endles -” 

Younghyun shoves a phone in his face.

**Channie:** there’s a guy here, lee minho, petty and average height, brown hair, you’ll know it’s him when you see him, bit of a lil shit rlly, he doesn’t approve of the coaching situation. he  believes that we’ll do well on our own. don’t be mad when he starts being a brat to you. he’s just protective of what we’ve done so far

Minho breathes in again, a sign that he'll break into song again. 

“Stalker man, stalker man, hope next time it's not you ~”

Younghyun drops his gym bag and sprints at Minho, ready for a duel to the death. 

Minho relinquishes his hold on Changbin and agilely steps aside, grinning into the chokehold that he's subjected into.

“Brats should show more respect to their coaches!”  

“You're not our coach yet, shut up!”

“No hyung, you can't kill my teammate!” Chan protests to deaf ears as Hyunjin quickly takes a myriad of photos for shaming purposes later. 

“This team is a riot,” Jae guffaws on the bench. “I can't breathe.”

“I think you mean that these idiots are a collective bundle of mess,” Jimin corrects him, checking on Woojin. “Woojin. Come ‘ere. Just a minute of your time.”

Woojin jogs over, eyebrows still scrunched up tight.

“What's up?” He asks her, though his feet are pointed to Changbin placating Younghyun to letting go of Minho. 

“Brian's a good guy. I would put a little trust in him as well as doubt,” she reassures him, voice gentle. 

The frown on his face etches deeper. “Who's Brian?”

Younghyun, bless his ears, turns and screams at them.  _ “No one!” _

Hyunjin can't hold it in anymore. He lets out a wail of laughter, hiccups punctuating his individual words. “Your,” hiccup, “name,” hiccup, “is,” hiccup, “Brian.”

“Oh!” Chan claps his hands suddenly. “You came to my middle school tournament, the one that we lost and didn't make it to national for! Sammy and Jae and Bambam and Brian came to cheer 3RACHA on.” He takes a look at Bri - er, Younghyun - “You look so different now. I always know you as Brian in my head, I'm so sorry, hyung, but I've known that name since forever and I can't stop calling you it?”

“That’s it!” Brian-Younghyun screeches. “All five of you, c’mere. You, yes you, blonde and buff, line up.”

A vein pops on Woojin’s temple.  _ “Blonde and buff?” _

_ “Yes, blonde and buff.  _ Make it happen, hurry,” 

“I can't fucking believe -” he breathes and four traitors pipe up  _ “Language, hyung!” _

If it wasn't for people holding him back physically, who knew how many human rights charters Woojin would have broken the clauses of?

They line up. Brian - look, there's no point not calling him Brian anymore, it's too much to ask for such an assemble of little brats like them - scans them, all one by one.

“You have one of each,” he solemnly informs them.

There is cricket silence. Jae even plays the background cricket noise from his phone. 

“Please,” Hyunjin swallows his incredulity and his hiccups, all in one gulp, “elaborate.”

As an afterthought, he tacks on a careful  _ coach.  _

“One in each position,” Brian sighs like they're stupid. 

Chan looks at his team and they in turn cast a sidelong gaze at Brian, all owlish. 

“Yeah,” Changbin blinks, “we been knew. It's not exactly a surprise?”

“I've seen you play before,” Brian pins him with a look, assessing his posture. “They call you Midget Ace Wannabe out in the wide volleyball world.”

“I'm aware,” Changbin grits his teeth, not exactly pleased with the monikers associated with his spikes, his playing styles and his name.

“They call you lot really unflattering names, like,” he flicks an eye to Minho, “demon service ace,” and another to Hyunjin, “naive guess blocker,” and to Chan, he sighs, “solo setter.”

That doesn't sound too good - the implications of  _ not playing as a team  _ is probably playing on maximum volume inside Chan's brain. 

Woojin frowns. Nobody gets to pick on his team except his team.

“Man,” he stretches ostensibly and loudly, “love being the one invisible guy nobody noticed. Sure feels nice to be one with the scenery.”

Immediately, the tension breaks. 

_ “Don't say that,”  _ Hyunjin scolds him sternly. 

“When are you not formidable?” Minho stresses. 

“I'm ready to fight them for you, hyung,” Hyunjin declares. 

Chan rolls his eyes. “Clearly those people haven’t played against you then.”

Chan sees the surprise flashing through Brian's eyes. They are rowdy and there is no sense of uniform throughout, but if there's a saying somewhere that embodies this team, it probably goes along the line of  _ you don't get to talk shit about one of our own - that's our job. _

_ We look after our own _ is admittedly more eloquently phrased and gives a false sense of solidarity and uniformity, but that would be false advertising on their parts. They set out to subvert negative expectations, not disappoint positive preconceptions of who they are - that’s not how they roll.  

“Okay, well,” their yet to be coach coughs. “I'm thinking of a game. For me to judge where you are and how to help you move forward. Three on three. That alright with you boys?” 

Minho's indignant hiss of  _ you're like four years older shut up _ is ignored in favour of Hyunjin's sparkly eyed  _ pro player pro player  _ chants.

Jimin leans over to Jae. “You are recording all of this, yes?”

He scoffs. “I'm not an amateur. Of course I'm recording it. I'm turning everything into a mood board and a gifset right after.”

  
  


“Ey boys,” Chan rounds everyone of his scattered team up. “Play well. Impress a pro. Get us some street creds.”

“The street creds say that we suck,” Minho points out. 

‘“We don't need street creds to know that,” Changbin shoots back.

Minho's offending gasp is almost believable. 

“Street creds say I'm a guess blocker,” Hyunjin looks down at his hands, then back up at them. “Do I look like I'm guessing my blocks? Am I jumping on instincts now? Am I no longer analytical and cool and calculated? Why are people excepting me deciding how I play?”

_ Whoop,  _ the four older boys share a sole thread of thought,  _ there it is.  _

Hyunjin's pissed. Now he’s going to commit block. 

They look at Brian, almost in sync.  _ Let's hope Hyunjin play on the same side as Brian. _

The teams are drawn out. Chan, Changbin and Hyunjin on one side. Minho, Brian and Woojin on the other.

_ Big RIP, Brian. _

Minho claps Brian's back in commiseration.

“Tough luck, wannabe coach.”

“Wait why.”

“Hyunjin's pissed. Ya better get ready to be blocked and stopped.”

“I'm a setter?” 

“What, you think kid can't play offense too?” Minho leans a hand on his hip, cocking himself to the side. A half smile on his lips, he smiles with both eyes half closed. “Piece of advice, aspiring coach,” he flicks an eye open, pupil all too large and dark amidst white, “- never underestimate my teammate. That will be your first of many fatal mistakes.”

Changbin tells them they're taking too long, bouncing a ball from behind the serving line.

“I am not underestimati -” Brian complains but doesn't have time to finish the rant. Changbin's serve is a nasty fast bullet in the form of a volleyball spike. He abandons everything and dives forward under a pleasant set up Minho got immediately under. 

“I got this!” Woojin, Blonde and Buff, calls in his left. 

Brian approximates the strength of the vertical jump and sends out an adjustable toss, stumbling back onto ground - all in less than five seconds.

Woojin's spike bounces off the tips of Hyunjin's block - Changbin in the back picks up the awry one touch - takes several running steps to a jump in the air - far, far up -

Woojin is at the net, jumping to a block - but Chan flashes them this mean and awful smile - and Brian thinks that he might need to take Minho's warning a little more seriously. Changbin is in full spiking form, yet he doesn't spike. He comes back down for Hyunjin to pop out from behind and slam down the toss to the far side of Woojin's right, on the very court boundary.

“One zero,” Jimin flags to Chan's team. “Binnie's serve still.”

“Bloody hell,” he wheezes. “You lil’ demons.”

“Victory is such a beautiful feeling,” Hyunjin inhales deeply. “I love subverting expectations.”

Brian has never blinked so much and so long in his life before that it's scaring him.

“Is this what you meant?” He swivels to Minho.

The kid has the audacity to shrug. “I've no idea what you're talking about.”

Changbin executes one of his spinning fast serves again and Minho kicks into gear, diving under the serve. It's up - he's tracking the trajectory of the receive and tosses the ball to Woojin, already jumping to his left -

Only for Hyunjin and Chan to push the attack back down, despite Woojin’s last-minute recovering manoeuvre in the air to turn the spike into a feint.

All because Hyunjin waits until the toss is hovering over the net and shuts it back down, leaving no time for Woojin to make contact.

“Wha ~” Jimin and Minho clap in disunity. “Hwang-ssi, so cool~!”

Hyunjin high fives Chan and turns to bow at Jimin and salute Minho over the net.

“What,” Brian gawks. “You don’t guess block?”

Hyunjin screams at him, a long finger tinged with the spin of his toss and the force of slamming the ball to the ground.  _ “Stop deciding my playing style for me!” _

“Do they even need training?” Jae whispers to Jimin.

“It’s much better to have guidance and an outsider’s perspective who just happens to be pro. Trust me, you wouldn’t go very far with just how you are right now. You need experience to guide you through, no matter how much you think you don’t need it. Like that Nanny Mcphee quote, y’know, the one,” she clicks her fingers, recalling. 

_ “When you need me, but do not want me then I must stay. But when you want me but no longer need me, I have to go.”  _ Jae reads from his phone. “Huh. Do they  _ need _ the coach or do they  _ want  _ the coach?”

Jimin remembers more than enough conversations shared between the team members and her.

“Both. More need than want. Brian will be good for them, and for him too.”

“You’re saying that because…?”

“There's gonna be a first year with a bad knee, like, for sure, and the overall condition of some of these guys can be good for the fellowship Brian is writing for,” she shrugs. “I've thought this out. That's why I directed Chan to Brian.”

“Ey,” Jae nudges her, “you schemer.”

“Nah, Chris actually got me to do most things. He's the schemer. I just...persuaded Brian a little. That's how we're here.”

They wince as Woojin slams a decisive spike onto an open spot behind Chan. 

Woojin descends back onto ground, but not without a beatific smile flashed at the captain. 

What Chan said in retaliation to the open provocation is up to debate, but the thunderous expression on his face speaks enough of what his strategies are to be for Woojin and Brian and Minho.

In terms of raw talent, there is no one on the sidelines that can attest to the differing skill levels between Chan and Brian - the gap is narrow and they play to maximise the offence of their team. While Brian excels in sheer speed, Chan has an abundance of control,  _ perhaps too great for a seventeen year old to grasp,  _ fingers flashing madly for the formations that he, Hyunjin and Changbin flow into naturally. Woojin and Minho are great attackers in their own right - and Minho's propensity to pull difficult shots mid air is more than appreciated and Woojin's solid receives - but the raw power of the blocker-spiker-setter set up from the other side of the net is frightening.

Brian clearly wasn't expecting this much of a solid foundation when he came this morning. Chan seemed to him, on the middle school match, someone quite static and stuck in his own head every time the result didn't amount to the effort devoted in. He seemed the type to quit, after so long.

Changbin clasps Chan in a side hug, hopping on his spot.  _ Ah. Little Channie grew up and made some friends huh. _

Brian is proud of where this team is. They've got monstrous potential -  they can take him on, an adult who have double the years of experience and bruises they can't even imagine of - they can go far, if he nudges them to the path that are the most suitable for their growth.

He's less proud by the amount of taunts and banter that occupy the sheer amount of time in between serves. 

“Can you shut the f -” He appeals Minho who promptly ignores him.

“Try harder, coach!” Hyunjin and Woojin jeer at  him, all in one unified voice of shitty teenage boy noise and disrespect for their elders. 

Chan begins to set on the other side, jumping to a jump serve. His palm leaves an audible  _ smack!  _ on the ball as it sails across the net and under Woojin's arms, effortless movement costing very little unnecessary steps. He nods his thanks, sets it up, spells out D-U-M-P to Minho who scoffs yet jumps in decoy anyway, leading Changbin who jumps by himself as Chan and Hyunjin scramble recover the dump a beat too late, the angle sharp and fast-driven to the ground. 

“Wow,” Minho looks at the rolling ball and flicks an eye up at him. “Snakey. I love it.”

“Thanks,” he replies drily, “I feel very validated.”

Chan vibrates excitedly on his feet as he kicks the ball under the net. “Guys and Jimin, this is like the slaying of the Nemean lion! I feel like I'm Heracles, at my wit's end, and I haven't felt like that in ages!”

Woojin frowns at him. “We don't have time for your weird animal analogy right now, Chan.”

“It's a labour of -” Chan rolls his eyes and jogs back to the back line. “ - it's not a weird animal analogy! I was making classical references. Something we all lack collectively! Because we're philistine!”

“Why do we need animal metaphors now?” Hyunjin looks at Changbin, baffled. “Who's the lion in question?”

“You've completely missed the point, sweetheart, but you get points for trying,” Minho reassures him. “I accept you and your clueless ways.”

“I'm not though!” The blocker declines hotly. “I see stuff! Sometimes!”

“There is literally no time or relevance for animal analogies right now,” Minho continues. “Because if anything, Chan is the animal in the analogy here.”

Chan starts this terrible caterwauling ordeal and starts screeching from the other side of the court. Woojin plugs his ears, nonchalant to all the obnoxious noises. 

Changbin pats the captain in the shoulder twice before making rude gestures to the team on the other side of the net, dispelling the banter away, sensing that the team (and Brian) will break into a brawl if they speak for any longer.

Yeah. They have to work on this whole bantering thing. It can drive even a pro mad. 

“How do you even win matches this way?” He bemoans to Woojin.

There's a sharp grin his way.

“It's a way for us to win,” he explains cryptically. “Imagine being riled up by,” he gestures to the five of them, “all of this in a game. You'll lose your figurative marbles.”

Brian is half convinced it is a legitimate method that they're refining.  Half of him thinks they're just being little assholes and testing if he can endure them.

Honestly though. He's been friends with Jae. Played with Kevin and Wonpil. There's not much he can't handle. 

He persists through the win of his team in the first set, making less and less mistakes as they progress - the stamina is also a concern, and how the kiddies start to run their own gig as they're aware of the shuffle of points each rotation.

He turns to stare at Minho in the eye, right before the service ace dishes out one of his Legendary Serves **™** . “Give me your best one yet, Lee-ssi.”

“Roger that, coach,” Minho replies in good humour, winking, palms spinning the ball and trapping its rotations. 

There is a  _ bam  _ and a skidding of soles - God he barely even  _ blinked -  _ and they've seized the set. 

Minho immediately whoops as the point goes to him, incredible service ace with a serve that is simply a spike from the back row - spiralling with the speed of bloody light past every one of those players and him - at sheer brute force and strategic spin alone. 

_ Demon service ace indeed.  _

“So?” Changbin sidles up close to him. “Do we pass the evaluation?”

He bunches the towel in his hand. Somehow these brats have simultaneously annoyed and interested him through a one hour long set - a disgraceful time allotment for a set, really. He told himself to keep an open mind, to refute if needs be, because  _ they're not my responsibilities, alma mater or not. _

He glances at reliable Woojin who doesn't let any attacks on his end touch ground, demon service ace Minho, a literal wall of terrifying blocking prowess Hyunjin, soaring Changbin with his feints and pinpoint spikes - 

and Chan. Solo setter who now found a home, a group of strays who flock and bloom under his quick strategies and sets, who have built and are building him.

“The more important question is,” he looks right at Chan, then Woojin, Changbin, Hyunjin, Minho, “did  _ I  _ pass the evaluation?”

“ _ Ey, I knew you'll pull through _ ,” Changbin cheers, punching him on the shoulder. 

“Coach! Coach! Coach! Coach!” Hyunjin chants, hopping up and down like an erratic kangaroo. 

“We didn't need to take an hour to figure that out,” Woojin complains, but fights a losing battle with the exhausted smile on his lips. 

“Welcome, stalker man. We're calling you either coach or Brian. No take backs,” Minho chirps, all pretty boy face and all terrible intentions to make his life hell. 

Brian doesn't get to reply to him. Chan sprints from the other side of the court, ducks under the net and flings himself at Brian, chanting a constant  _ yay yay thank you so much Brian-hyung!  _ and he thinks that it's worth it, listening to the pleading of this Chris from JYP and his friends.

**Current concern:** Find a coach

**Current concern:** How to get along with the coach and function as a team 

  
  


(In the equipment room, a whiteboard hangs. It makes Brian bark with laughter whenever Hyunjin brings it out to him.

**Current concern:** How to get along with the coach and function as a team 

Underneath it, in Brian’s messy scrawl - 

**GET TO NATIONALS YA PUNKS!!!!!**

A picture of their entire team - all nine of them, grinning and sprawling on top of each other, Jimin holding Jae, Brian and Chan in a chokehold, Woojin apologising to the photographer with an exasperated expression in his lips, the first years clinging all to each other, grinning more with gums and braces than teeth - 

This picture is clipped under the club goal. 

“For us to remember what we're striving for,” Chan tells the team. “To remind us that even though we may stray, we're going to stay as an entire team. It's all of us or nothing. It's everyone for everyone. You -” he blinks rapidly, sensing the attention on him, “ - you make up this team, all of you. You make us stay as a unit.”

“Let's hear it,” Woojin raises a fist, “for Stray Kids!”

They huddle for a team high five.

“Step out! We're Stray Kids!”

Hyunjin and Felix and Jisung start to pout as they pull away.

“No,” Woojin tells them, stern.

After a while of pouting.

“Fine, Jesus,  _ fine,”  _ he groans, throwing his hands up in defeat. 

They come for another huddle, the kids vibrating excitedly.

“We - are  _ Groot!” _  
  


“I hate this team.”

“No you don't, hyung.”)

  
  
  


**Time** : Late August, bleeding into September

The new school year begins and the seniors of the boys volleyball club step into the gymnasium before the entrance ceremony, partially to calm down before facing the brunt of the whispers and partially to spy if there are any lingering new members already frequenting the gym. 

Changbin bets that there will be someone, but he's a volleyball idiot, so he always thinks that other people operate on the same manic obsessive wavelength that he does. No matter how many times the team maintains  _ no Binnie Binnie, you can’t just practice for twelve hours at once, you will collapse and injure yourself _ , it goes all over his head  ~~ because he’s short ~~ and because he’s a stubborn fool who survives solely on spiking practice.

Woojin bets him 1000 won that he's wrong. Nobody - and they have grounds to base that generalisation on, they are a team of volleyball-obsessed idiots in a school that have champion volleyball players who are now pro - is that intense at first year. Literally there is nobody that is so devoted they play volleyball before an opening ceremony at the first instance they make it to high school.

Changbin walks away from this ordeal with new money in his pocket, humming gleefully under his breath. 

“How,” Woojin blinks and stares into nowhere. “How the hell -”

“Language, hyung,” Chan scolds, also in the same note of glee that Changbin holds, giggling and bouncing alongside a disbelieving Woojin. 

Hyunjin nods thoughtfully. Apparently there are those souls out there who breathe and live on volleyball and subsist on every other thing a human needs to survive. To be fair, he was ambivalent to the bet, because betting against either the extremity of goodness and chaos will never turn out well for anyone silly or reckless enough to delve into. But that doesn't mean he wasn't curious as to see which new students would turn up at their gym right before the entrance ceremony.

Minho had cackled for a solid three seconds when there was, indeed, two first year loitering around the vicinity of the locked gym, babbling and trying to, heaven forbid, pick the lock and break inside. 

“Criminals in training,” he was ecstatic, “I love these children already.”

“We are not condoning these types of behaviour,” Woojin snapped out of his considerable loss at the mention of criminal activity and general misconduct. “I'm going to chew them out when they do turn up at club registration later on. Memorise the back of their heads.”

“Evil,” Hyunjin had snickered. 

“Pay up, hyungie,” Changbin spread out his palms in front of Woojin, wriggling his fingers.

The vice captain’s left eye twitched as he dug out his wallet for the money. 

Chan had counted to ten, in which he allowed himself to hack out a quick chuckle at the predicament Woojin roped himself in, then clapped his hands, calling attention. 

“Come on gentlemen, we have to go.” At their collective protests, he started to herd them away physically, even seizing the back of Minho's shirt. To Woojin, he said, “Hyung, give him the winning so Binnie will shut up.” To Changbin, “Binnie, no annoying him until long after practice.” And to the troublemakers, “Minho, Hyunjin, we are going, we're not taking unauthorised photos of people we haven't been introduced to. That's illegal. We're not criminals here. Stare at them until you’ve memorised the back of their heads. No photos.”

“Cap is no fun,” Minho whined, even though he pocketed his phone.

“One of them is pretty tall though. You reckon,” Hyunjin bounced excitedly on the soles of his shoes, eyes bright, “we could have a blocking unit this year, me and Woojin and the first year?”

“We'll have to see later,” Chan grinned. “Here's to hoping.”

“Boring ~” Changbin chanted. “Money, money, money, gimme money, Woojinnie-hyung ~”

“This is a dysfunctional group and we are not going to go anywhere,” Woojin complained, peering into space like there are hidden cameras and he’s starring on The Office. He was pulling the patented Office Face **™** too. 

“Stop jinxing us before the first years get here, hyung,” Chan grinned amicably, letting go of Minho's collar. “We're gonna be late. Walk faster, come on.”

 

(At the entrance ceremony, Chan gets a message, or a snap. He fishes the device out, glancing at the content. 

From  **_doraemon impostor:_ ** _ eyyyy fam we at jyp looking forward to the club after school today chris _

“Why are you smiling like you found a way to prevent destitution in Jjokbangchon,” Minho mouths at him, eyebrows scrunched in consternation.

“I mean,” Chan begins. “It's possible if you -”

“I don't wanna hear it!” Minho hisses, swinging his head back to the teacher delivering the speech.

Chan pockets his device. 

The returning message reads - from  **bang bang bang** \-  _ you’re here!!!!!! can’t wait for 3RACHA to become a reality again!! o(*^▽^*)o  o(*^▽^*)o _ )

  
  


Prior to meeting the first years, Chan collects the three misfits and gathers them quite amazingly into a huddle, knocking Minho and Changbin on the back of their heads when they start their daily squabble.

“Behave,” he reminds them sternly. 

“We have to set a good example for the kiddies to follow,” Woojin pipes in.

“I’m trusting in you, Real and Fake Captains,” Hyunjin breaks away enough to bow to Chan and Woojin, barely dodging the kick that Woojin swipes at his shins. “I’m speaking only truth under this roof, hyung! Why would you kick me for it?”

Chan mutters repeatedly under his breath.  _ We are a team we are a team we are a team I will not kill the team members we are a team we are a - _

Minho perks up from the huddle, slamming a fist in his palm. “I have an idea!”

“Is it going to be a good idea,” Woojin asks soullessly. 

“Why hyung, I didn’t know you were that interested in my prison break schemes - it’s no matter, you’ve revealed your subconscious desires to break out notorious drug lords from jail with me -  _ ow ow hyung not the hair not the hair!”  _ He jerks away, a lump of hair still held tight in Woojin’s relentless pull. “It hurts, please stop.”

“I think he meant  _ useful for the club,”  _ Hyunjin pitches in, air quotes evident in his voice.

“I heard your air quotes,” Changbin flicks a glance at him, nose wrinkled like he’s being shown the back of someone’s shoe. “That is so weird.”

“Your face is weird,” Hyunjin counters back and doesn’t move fast enough to avoid the hit to his shoulder. “ _ Ow _ . It hurts when you punch me, hyung.”

“Then don’t say things that will get you punched,” Changbin bristles. 

Meanwhile, Minho twists so that he can face Chan. “With the first years, it is vital that we welcome them thoroughly through the game of good cop and bad cop.”

Chan, for all his infinite patience, deems a soft and bland - “For what purpose are we playing this for.”

Minho answers without a beat. “Entertainment.”

Hyunjin can almost hear the sigh Chan doesn’t need to give substance to. 

Woojin considers it. It requires only half a second. “Excellent. I'm the bad cop.”

“Why are you condoning this game of bullying, hyung,” Chan almost spikes his face with the palm of his hand. Facepalm? No. Face spike. 

“Entertainment, Channie, why else,” Woojin coos, breaking from the huddle. “Eat bitter, taste sweet, right? We have to test them somehow.”

_ “Test them outside of volleyball?”  _ Chan echoes back, brows drawn together. “This is a volleyball club, not some - some Spartan training camp where you bully first years at the first instance -”

Minho watches all of this unfolds with barely contained glee, his entertainment for the day.

“You planned this all out, didn’t you,” Changbin glances at him, not even bothered with accusing Minho of anything. 

“Don’t stop them yet. I want to see all this,” the third year waves him away, fixated on the row the two captains are engaged in, verbal barbs swinging back and forth. “Maybe they’ll start judo flipping each other next,” his grin grows, almost maniacal now. “Fight fight fight.”

“I kinda feel sorry for the kids that’s joining our club,” Hyunjin hums softly. Jimin appears at his elbow. “Hey Jimin.”

“Are they splitting their assets,” she points her water bottle at the bickering pair, Chan swinging the key out of Woojin’s reach and snarling about  _ responsibility!  _ In that particular way that he does whenever he feels especially Captain of Potential Volleyball Team-ly. 

“I think so,” Hyunjin frowns. “The team doesn’t need a divorce now. There’s custody of us and assets. We can’t let that happen. What about games? Chan-hyung will get in a foul mood like, every set he does and then everyone else will be prissy but Woojin-hyung will enjoy it because they’re divorced -”

Jimin puts a comforting hand on his arm. “I think you need to breathe and not think of the worst.”

“This is boosting our entertainment value,” Minho gleefully records Woojin’s half judo flip on Chan who avoids it easily, quickly sidestepping his grip. “Don’t stop them now.”

Jimin has half a mind to let them persist, but she remembers that she has a role to  _ manage the club  _ and Brian will actually blow two fuses and a quarter if they’re not finished arranging themselves in a semblance of a team by the time he gets out of the meeting and there’s Hyunjin hyperventilating about his volleyball parents splitting. She sighs, stepping around Minho and cuts in between Chan and Woojin, snatching the gym key from them.

“- you’re such an irresponsible snak -” Chan snaps his jaw shut as she stares up at him expectantly. “Jimin.”

Woojin’s eyes flash winningly as he drapes an arm over Jimin’s shoulder. 

“You’re an embarrassment,” Jimin scolds Chan, “and you’re not much better, Woojin. Don’t humiliate yourselves before club starts.”

They both deflate at her words. Minho hacks out a sound that is a scary reenactment of a braying donkey, all scrunched up eyes and pointing finger at the to the pair of third years. He bounces off to them, mouth running off still on the concept of Good Cop Bad Cop and breezes by Chan’s spiking arm. 

“We should do it, we should do it!” He sings. “I'll do it, I'll help ~!”

_ “No you won’t! Get back here!”  _ Chan shrieks after him, tearing behind Minho’s escaping form.

Changbin and Hyunjin look at them, then at each other.

“You know, if there is a sport of pure provocation,” Hyunjin purses his lips distastefully at the third year.

“He’ll have the fucking gold medal for it, yeah yeah, we been knew, kid,” Changbin rolls his eyes. “Stand at the door and look after the kiddies while we set up everything - don't give me that look. Look at us. Look at this mess. We only have you as a shaky representative of sane people on this ragtag crew. Ya gotta represent normalcy at the door before mayhem hit them in an Woojin spike once they step through the threshold.”

Hyunjin scrunches his face. “I’m not too sure if any of that is a compliment.”

“It was a statement. Have fun playing guard.” Their shortest spiker claps him on the shoulder decisively and marches past, leaving him at the door leading to the gym.

He hates being the  ~~ shaky and only ~~ representative of normal on this team. Middle Blocker sounds  _ leagues  _ cooler in comparison.  

A group of kids wander by and veer right past him loitering at the doors, right to the baseball pitch. 

Hyunjin waits. There are furious whispers, then the the big group of first years circle back. They stand as a group, big eyes looking at him, one with a mop of platinum blonde hair at the front of the little group, vibrating on the balls of his feet. 

He starts to march at Hyunjin and he’s ready, alright, he’s ready to be an upperclassman, a model of proper mannerism and behaviour and decorum to the kiddies, he’s ready to bully young ‘ins, he’s ready to face the crushing reality that time is passing and he’s a year older now he has responsibilities -

“Hi,” Platinum Blonde grins, a half smile. He’s average height, very blonde, could be conventionally gorgeous if he wasn’t too maniacally staring at the sliver of the gymnasium set out behind Hyunjin’s shoulder. It scares him - intense people who are just as intense off the courts as they are on them are frightening, alright? “We’re looking for the volleyball club.”

“Right,” Hyunjin blinks, “you must be first years.”

“Yeah,” a cocky grin, a jut of a hip. 

Hyunjin blinks twice, rethinking the initial impressions - Platinum blonde, intense,  _ definitely  _ volleyball maniac. 

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he offers a hand. “Second year. Welcome to the team, new blood.”

“Han Jisung,” the first year smirks, with only one side of his mouth lifting. “Pleasure to make ya acquaintance.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it! The first task is completed! Now you get to wait for five million years until I get the second chapter out! (lol jk it won't be long don't worry) The next task, for the team to 'Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra' is going to focus on a specific character - all chapters from now on will focus on a character while zooming out to show how the team interacts with that character - so if you want to - do guess who it is!  
> (No the Hydra having the classical nine heads isn't a coincidence - I actually did something on purpose this time, so we can scream about meaningful symbolism on here or Twitter)
> 
> If you're puzzled by anything, I am across all the social media and on the comment section here - it's going to move along the more you read so hopefully it all makes sense by the end!! 
> 
> lol this chapter was titled Brian's Very Bad Day with Half of Stray Kids
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/jarofactonbell), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny)


	2. The second task: Slay the Lernaean Hydra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Team huddle!” Felix cheers and piles onto their hug. One then turns to nine, and he feels like the Hydra rearing its ugly heads being torched aflamed by Heracles arriving at Lernae.
> 
> One day, he can slice off the final head of this reptilian beast, regenerating newer and older worries from within the unknown recesses of his mind. In this metaphor, he doesn’t quite know if he himself is the hero in the metaphor or it is the ragtag crew around him that is Heracles.
> 
> But does that matter, or does laughing at Minho slipping on glitter as he enters with cheesecake more important?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahahahahahahahaha sorry this took ages to be delivered, i don't know how to write or write well and pull lots of late nights for a good 90% of this fic writing in the dark because i'm packing to go overseas now that exams are done and I Am: Free from high school forever, so things have been intense and loud and people don't like it when i have too much time on my laptop
> 
> i have lots of fun writing about jisung - by fun i meant pain, because i kinda injected a lot of my personality into jisung because i find that high pressure and fame don't go well together and he would be all high and mighty about it in public but in reality, he's very insecure about everything because impostor syndrome is a bitch and deep-rooted insecurity more so - playing as a team is hard and being the apologist that i am is even harder to function with others, so i just want to explore that and see how it goes
> 
> as usual, this is very unedited because i leave the civilised world in like 10 hours so send me many comments and love because y'all won't see me for ten days

Place: Jin Young Park High School 

Time: September 1st, welcoming ceremony 

State of mind: Refreshed that he's on home turf again

After a month in Malaysia, training and pretending he is ‘relaxing’, he's back and refreshed and he can  _ do this.  _ He’s regrouping with 3RACHA, he’s going to play volleyball again, they’ll be able to play together as a team with the three of them - 

He’ll be good enough. They’ll be strong enough. They won't splinter and fracture apart again.  
  


He runs into a group of volleyball idiots, being one himself and often lumped with two older accomplices. This particular set up holds an odd arrangement, an orange bob dragging away two much taller boys, fresh faced, a volleyball between the three of them.

It's almost similar to baby 3RACHA. It's utterly adorable. 

“Mornin’,” he lifts a hand, grinning at the little entourage. “Practicing for games already?”

The volleyball jolts in the air, the boy holding it flinching in surprise at his appearance from seemingly nowhere. He’s been told, time and again, that he steps in the air and not the ground. Chan jokingly teased him long ago that  _ in another life, you’ll be a terrifying ninja, Jisung-ah.  _ The ball sails in a crude arc in the air and he reaches a hand over his head, stopping the arc as it comes back down, gripping the ball with his fingertips and palm, suspending the motion.

“Holy shit,” one wheezes, looking parts spooked  and parts impressed. 

“Here we are,” he hands the ball over, one hand gripping on it still. “Keep a good hold on it. It’s a good quality ball.”

Orange Haired bows abruptly, voice stuck in his throat. It comes out whiny and no less deep. “Thank you! Sorry!”

“Lix, mate,” one boy side eyes the ‘Lix’ boy, “you’re a mess. Which one did you mean.”

“Uh,” ‘Lix’ lifts his head, “probably both?”

Jisung lets go of the ball, his other hand coming up to cover his grinning mouth. “It’s alright. I have that kinda effect on people when I first meet them. Nice to meetcha,” his grin escapes the coverage of his hand,  _ “Lix.” _

‘Lix’ goes bright red, clapping hands over his mouth. An ‘eep’ escapes him.

_ Easily intimidated, hey? That won’t do in the games.  _ Jisung grins even harder, relinquishing his hold on the ball. 

The other two boys watch on, looming over their heads.

“See you later,” he turns a shoulder away, eyes slanting to ‘Lix’ and his tall friends. “Put up a  good fight, boys.”

Ah, right. He has to text Chan, tell the worrywart he’s here.   
  


There are these awed whispers as Jisung walks the hallways to his classrooms. It’s to be expected - a lot of people this end of Seoul have all heard of his skill set or seen his games - the trio of Jisung, Chan and Changbin struck fear into their opponents’ hearts in the past and the name ‘3RACHA’ carries on the legacy of one of the best offensive units in Gangdong-gu. 

He also bagged himself numerous acknowledgements of Best Libero in middle school, carrying on the legacy long after his hyungs leave the volleyball court. When Changbin graduated, Chan came to his ceremony, clasping Changbin and Jisung in twin fierce grips. 

_ “We’ll play together on the same court again,”  _ he tearfully promised,  _ “I swear it will happen.” _

By divine coordination efforts, due to Changbin never having his phone on him and Chan never replying to messages, they manage to rendezvous in the music room on the west side of the school. Yes, they are still the best of friends despite being in different year levels, different schools for the past two years and different countries for the past two months, but they held on, fought teeth and nails to maintain that love of volleyball between the three of them. Yes, they are still the best of friends despite strenuous circumstances, but in those times that eclipse them not being able to stand by each other’s side, they’ve changed.

“Holy shit,” Jisung gasps as he enters, his hyung entirely different, “Seo Changbin.”

“I don’t like that tone of voice!” The shorter boy hollers at him, despite taking a run and throwing himself at Jisung anyway. 

Jisung welcomes his sloth friend with open arms, catching him with a barely audible  _ oof!  _ They hug each other for a solid ten seconds, before he steps away, clapping Changbin’s cheeks between his palms.

“You cut your bangs!”

“Mum cut my bangs,” Changbin corrects. “I just stood there and suffered.”

“Ey, still a mama’s boy after all these years.”

“You saw me four months ago, you vagabond, don’t go stretching out time stamps,” the boy garbles through squished cheeks. “Let me go, brat, before the big one comes and -”

“And what?” Chan flickers into view, all Minato-like with his Yellow Flash Jutsu. It's even worse that he's blonde and pretty too.

Jisung and Changbin barely have time to draw into themselves before Chan begins the Papa Chan Hug Tackle Combo™, suffocating his two closest friends into chokeholds that are loosely termed ‘hugs’. Bang Chan vows to never lie, like a bloody faery out to hook humans into inescapable contracts with him with how he swerves around the truth and how nobody can call him out on his bullshit.

The day he sprouts wings and shows the world his fangs, Jisung is going to lose his shit calling out how he  _ was right. _

“How are you how are you how are you,” Chan jostles them around like two bunches of very judgemental grapes, benevolent Leader Smile switched to maximum setting. “I miss you I miss you I miss you.”

“Do everything come in threes for you?” Changbin complains.

“I miss you too, hyung, but my arms, my arms,” Jisung lets out an undignified ‘eep!’ as Changbin is released and Chan throws all his long limbs and arm muscles at him, breaking at least a few joints and capillaries.

“My baby,” Chan coos, “leaving me all alone with my demon club members and their dastardly ways.”

“Hyung, I’m the original brat. I have never once in my time of knowing you, listened to a single bloody thing you have ever told me - stop, stop  _ squeezing _ me, I can’t feel my arms!”

Chan squeezes him one last time and lets him go, eyes soft and fond at being able to stand in the same school and same country with Jisung once more.

“Hey,” he smiles, “missed ya.”

“Me too,” Jisung coughs, a hand clapping on Chan’s shoulder. “But you broke my ribs and now I can’t go on.”

Off to the side, he can hear Changbin’s little snitchy voice. “So dramatic, this boy. It’s been like, five minutes since we regroup and he’s dishing out the theatrics already.”

“Oi!” He pouts. “Be nice to your juniors!”

“I will if they’re nice and respectful back! And don’t tell me I don’t deserve respect because you don’t as well, brat!”

Chan maintains his World Leader Promoting Overall Peace smile, no crumbling edges or wavering. Damn. Must be some tough teammates if that wobbly smile back in middle school is steeled to a weaponised force in high school.

“Sorry,” Jisung and Changbin quickly bow their heads, “we love you, leader-nim.”

“Ah, power and dignity,” Chan breathes in, “how nice.”

Jisung slants his eyes over to Changbin.  _ So y’all don’t listen to him 100%? _

Changbin returns with complicated hand motions that are half volleyball attack signals and interpretative dance, and Jisung is a genius at reading body language, but seriously, what the fuck?

He widens his eyes.  _ Later, tell me later at club.  _

Choosing the diplomatic answer to shut Chan up on his tirade about respecting your elders, he smiles, adding the Angelic Quality over the shine of his teeth and the curve of his mouth. “I’m hyped. We’ll get to play as 3RACHA again.”

Changbin and Chan beam at him. It wasn’t really a diplomatic answer as much as the truth. He had been slaving for this opportunity and he will not let it slip. They will make it to nationals and snatch every opportunity with their nails and teeth. 3RACHA will rise on top indisputably. Nothing will tear them apart and break them down ever again.  
  


(“No, don’t cry, come on,” Chan draws him in a hug, Changbin refusing to make contact with them, hands jammed inside his eye sockets. “We’ll meet each other again.”

“It’ll be,” Jisung hiccups, “years. _Years_. We won’t see you in years.”

“We’ll play again,” Chan repeats. “I promise. High school. Intercollegiate. Whatever it takes, we will go to nationals with the three of us. I promise you that.”

“How can we do that, when we’re all separated?” He wails, clutching their setter, the connecting point between libero and spiker, the missing link now that he has to move with the flow of time, yanked violently from their grasp, when they are blossoming into something  _ more.  _

“High school, Jisungie,” Chan repeats, not quite believing in his words. “High school.”

They're broken apart and they're severed at the most crucial links - the pillars of a fortress torn down before a kingdom can be expanded - how can they build a kingdom from rubble, dominate with broken staffs, lean upon half-completed sentinels, reinforce with missing links?

_ We will see each other again. I promise you that,  _ Chan had vowed to them. 

Jisung holds those words close to his heart even until this day. They will be good enough. They will dominate.)  
  


He runs into the group of three boys again, loitering close enough to the volleyball club to look vaguely like they are passing by there out of sheer coincidence because the school is too small, but not too near that the assumption of  _ oh you want to join the club too  _ can be extended to them.

But Jisung, as a veteran of the very same tactics for about five years in the running now, is only too familiar with the shifts of feet and frantic whispers. The aborted glances at the closed gym and passing students hurrying in and out of their respective club spaces. The wide eyed looks and nudging each other in the ribs,  _ no you go ask them where it is  _ evident in their body language.

It's almost funny to walk behind them as they march by gymnasium number two to the baseball pitch, all intent and purposes in their strides that he is shaken mildly in believing that they are signing up for that sport.

It's not until he hears a hissed  _ no Minnie, turn back, we should just walk in _ that he burst out laughing, this situation too ridiculous to not laugh.

Minnie turns a defensive eyebrow his way. “I know what I'm doing!”

“Uh huh,” Jisung nods, entirely convinced.

If it's possible for humans to turn any redder than ‘Minnie’ and ‘Lix’, Jisung would pay to see that. He would empty pockets of cash to see blood vessels burst on cheeks and necks. This is the peak of mortification and heck if he doesn't enjoy it.

“Told you all of this was stupid,” Tall Child with Braces Entirely Not Suitable For Sports snorts, sharp eyes upturned with an unimpressed edge. 

“You were supposed to be on my side!” Minnie hisses, the  _ you little traitor  _ implicit.

His friend shrugs, apparently not very guilty in dobbing his mate in.

Jisung loves this comedy routine they got happening, but club is starting and the more time they lose bickering between themselves, the more time they won't have in practice where the necessary bicker to bond as a team will set into gear later. He digs the tip of his shoe into the ground, plowing right at the concern.

“So, you wanna walk to the volleyball club or stand here and chat?” A pregnant pause. “I could do both, practically speaking, but preferably we do this inside gym 2.” He looks up with a disarming smile. “How about it?”

“Okay first of all, fuck you,” Minnie shrugs all his friends off.

“And second of all, he doesn't know where that is,” Tall and Braces sighs. “We've forgotten the way to the volleyball gym.”

Jisung takes regular intakes of breath, lest he breathes out too loudly and ends up laughing this little entourage from one end of the school to another. 

“It’s,” he inhales, searching for Zen and inner peace and wheezing out, “the gym you just passed.”

He doesn’t need to hide his guffaw when two simultaneous howling laughing bouts burst forth from the throats of two out of three new first years and he sees heaven and hell all in the one laugh.

“Shut up!” Minnie screeches.  _ “Stop laughing!” _

Which obviously just makes them laugh harder. Really. Where did this boy come from, some alien planet where  _ stop laughing  _ as an imperative actually works?

“I can’t,” Braces Boy sobs, with tears flowing, “I legitimately cannot.” 

“You, pal,” Jisung grins, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “is an alien specimen and I want you to never change your ways.”

“Bless your heart,” ‘Lix’ coughs in English and supplies the same sentence in Korean. 

“I can’t stop crying from laughing, that was great,” Braces and Tall wipes the corners of his eyes. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be that funny, but thank you, Minnie, for existing.”

Minnie mutters something like  _ I’ll spike a ball and bust your braces, you sentient tree lug,  _ but it all falls to oblivion.

He directs his rage to Jisung, desperate for his woes to be taken out on somebody that aren’t his friends. 

“You!” He points, fresh. “I know your face.”

Jisung offers him a politely confused _ I’m honoured?  _ with a smile that is more a pull of lips than an expression of glee. His face isn’t something Jisung invests in to be known for. It must be a significant event for his face to be that memorable, one face among many that share similar ethnic features. 

“Urgh, Kim Seungmin,” his friend nags, “why are you always out to embarrass yourself and us?” 

“You’re embarrassing,” Kim Seungmin shoots back, even without much thought on what was said, “and you’re Han Jisung. You’re the infallible libero.”

“Oh,” Braces Boy clicks his fingers, “true that.”

He steels himself, a subconscious twitch of his shoulder giving away his wariness of being recognised by potential volleyball players. Casual fans of the sports are always welcomed whenever they spot him - being recognised by even outsiders feeds into his quickly concaving self-deprecation. He’s always too harsh on himself whenever others who play volleyball pay him compliments or a spark of recognition. It’s a vicious cycle of thought - they meant well when their eyes light up in a spark of common ground, but Jisung, in years of separation from the two grounding presences that would undoubtedly every time, drag him out of his own head, have been missing. He sinks under the weight of the frantic unreasonable thoughts he lets loose inside his head and he bristles, refusing to believe any praise to be simply just praise, where he knows, somewhere, that he’s being silly -

“You’re freaking him out,” a deep voice whispers. ‘Lix’ reaches a hand out for him, brows pulled together in concern. “And you’re freaking yourself out.”

Jisung composes himself. Builds back the charms and easygoing airs. Blinks and switches back on the thought process that everything is fine.  _ He’s fine. He’s going to be alright. He has his own two hands and two feet with functioning brain cells. He will succeed. _

Plastering on a teasing smile again, he leans on a hip. “So wanna go to the gym and introduce ourselves?” 

Apparently ‘Lix’ is a big fan of selective hearing. He offers Jisung a hand, shaped for a cordial hand grip between new acquaintances, smile firmly in place. There’s no edge of pretence to the curve of his lips and the tilt of his eyes. Jisung tentatively accepts the olive branch, mouth working around a passing introduction.

“Lee Felix, or Lix. Whichever is fine,” Lee Felix ‘Lix’ smiles at him, with both his teeth and eyes. “Pleased to meetcha.”

“Aiyo, butt off, Lee,” Seungmin hip checks Felix away, but the other boy doesn’t relinquish his grip on Jisung. Minnie simply clasps his hands over the top of their joined hands, wide smile turned up to the apex for maximum impact. 

“Kim Seungmin,” he nods, tall and still growing, limbs everywhere. “Sorry I came off as crass. I’m normally more in control of myself.”

“The first word after your name when you introduce yourself to a stranger is ‘sorry’,” Braces Boy snickers. “What does that say about you then, Minnie?”

Seungmin doesn’t move his head. “You watch the back of your head today at club, Yang. I’m putting a dent in it.”

“Ooh,” Braces Boy Yang shivers, “I am so scared.” He flicks a playful wink at Jisung. “Yang Jeongin. Good to see you ‘ere with us.”

The Busan inflection, along with the braces, give him a certain country bumpkin charm. It works for him. Jisung nods back, equally playful, and realises that he doesn't need to layer on the fake charms he expands out in heavy dosage to others. They are odd, just as he is, and their charms manifest in lovable quirks that are accepted amongst them. In their reaching hands and words, they smile at him, strangers that are becoming friends.  _ It's alright. Who you are is alright with us. _

It feels like a weight off his shoulder to maintain reputation that he doesn't believe in.

He moves the conglomeration of hands up and down. “Han Jisung. I trust myself in your care from now on.”

“Ay,” Seungmin winks, “course, pal.”

And of course, it breaks when Felix withdraws his hands rather abruptly from the pile, checking his watch. “Club started like, ten minutes ago. We need to move it.”

“We need to go, we need to go,” Jeongin sings, “late late late late ~”

Jisung has half a mind to race them to the gym, but knowing their sense of direction, they’ll wind up lost, so he spares them that particular burden. Taking Seungmin’s sleeve, he drags the little entourage of loud and easily excitable first years to the volleyball club, marching ahead of them, while accounting for the fact that they’re all there and not lost to the wild wild space of Jin Young Park’s sporting facilities.

 

Once they pass Hyunjin the Sentinel of the Volleyball Club Gym, Jisung feels like he passed simply stage one of the testing trials ahead. Stage two is already in motion, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what it is and what its purpose is.

They stand awkwardly in a wonky spread of spooked first years, and Jisung can’t find Changbin or Chan. They’re probably in the equipment room, or getting changed, or getting murdered because they’re being stupid. A girl, could be the coach or manager, wanders by them and stops, eyes scanning the group of four with visibly no expression on her face.

Jisung has a feeling this is test number two, but it could also mean she looks at everyone in that hugely disappointed and judgemental expression.

“Hmm,” she nods, “y’all a bit on the short side, but bones will grow.”

They buffer, all trying to cough out a coherent response. 

“We’ll try our best?” Jeongin tilts his head. 

“I’m sorry I disappointed you?” Jisung blinks, politely discombobulated. 

“I’m nearly 180, stop with the nagging!” Seungmin complains.

Felix simply bows and introduces himself. “Nice to meet you. I’m Lee Felix. Please take care of just me from now on. They can rot elsewhere.”

A pause. She keeps staring, storing their knee jerk responses into weird disses about their heights, then breaks into a maniacal grin. “Ay. I like this. Y’all riots.”

He visibly sags. The suspense at not knowing is heavier than the judgement itself. Of course one more approval of them as a group is significantly ideal, though he doubts Hyunjin doesn't need much to pass people through. What's worrying, personally for him, is the girl, sharp eyes and calculating their potential and not saying much of anything. Being a subject of scrutiny of wordless appraisals is an abject concept he wants no parts in, praise within the wordless appraisals or not.

She just glances them all over, humming. 

“Try to breathe. I don't eat human flesh before twelve o'clock.”

“Uh,” Seungmin blinks twice to process that all through, “that's great?”

“Is that at noon or at night, so I know when to run,” Felix takes a step back, eyes big and wary. Jisung thinks she’s joking, but his body always shifts back into a stance that can readily accommodate a sprint into the other direction if things do turn awry and he has to escape to the nearest exit because the volleyball club does indeed eat first years who aren’t up to their arbitrary standards.

He hopes he doesn’t join the ranks of those already fallen and digested but  _ just to be sure,  _ he’s not stepping another foot forward until all claims of cannibalism are disproved as fiction and solely an intimidation technique to weed out weak-hearted recruits. 

“I taste terrible. I recommend eating just one of us, like Minnie,” Jeongin steps behind his friend, the little inch Seungmin has over him significantly shielding his head from the girl’s line of sight. “He eats his vegetables and has good sources of proteins from all the eggs he fries.”

Jisung just has to add in, because hey, better the guy than him - “I volunteer him as tribute. For your cannibalistic diet. No judgements here, just recommending the cut of meat. Here. Take him. We can live without him.”

She flicks an eye up at all of them, smile still attached on her face. “You pass. I’m sure the kiddies will like you. Now stop being so uptight and say hi properly.”

“Customs dictate that you should say it before us,” Jeongin blurts out.

Felix and Jisung jam mutual elbows into the kid and flash bright smiles at the girl. 

“Customs are wrong. They’re old and impractical. No need to listen to them,” he smoothly counters. 

“Jeongin here doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He got nailed in the head during lunch by Seungmin’s weird toss, so do forgive him if he happens to blabber on matters that aren’t relevant to the question,” Felix pushes himself forward calmly, manners all held in check. 

“Hmm,” the girl continues to hum, “I really like you lot.”

“Park!” A distinctly Changbin-esque voice screeches up a storm in the storage room. “I need you and your expert storing self in here!”

She grins at them, all wordless and keeping her opinions to herself, and jogs away to the equipment room. “Don’t think I didn’t hear your snark there, Seo!”

“Maybe if you put shit in places where I can see, we wouldn’t have this problem!” Changbin keeps screaming, rustling loudly through whatever wonders lie unbidden in the depths of this equipment room. 

“Maybe you just need better glasses to see the labels I made on the shelves!” She screams back, laughing all the while.

The resounding gasp would be almost empathetic for Jisung who is friends with that hyung with his shitty eyesight, but Changbin is just theatrically incapable of feeling offended, so Jisung doesn’t even bother with defending him.

“I’m so confused,” Seungmin frowns, “are they always this dysfunctional?”

Jeongin curls his lips. “You say that like you’re the most functional human being this side of Gangnam-do. Sit down, tall freak, and be grateful.”

Felix seamlessly steps away from the uppercut Seungmin aims at Jeongin, who doesn’t move in time and copes with the brunt of impact. Jisung lets out an ‘oof!’ of acknowledgement and commiseration while Jeongin hops away in telltale pain, hissing about assault and betrayal of trust stacking up for this whole day. 

“Aiya,” Felix shakes his head, orange hair flopping into his eyes, “you guys are so loud and embarrassing.”

“You don’t get to talk, lawnmower!” Jeongin points with his elbow, still clutching his arm. “Ow, Minnie, I can’t believe you punched me for real.”

Felix tips his chin to the ceiling - “I’m very quiet” in tandem with Seungmin’s low mutter - “I played baseball with the sole goal of being able to pummel the shit out of people who annoy me.”

“Uh huh,” Jisung nods on both counts, “keep telling yaself that.”

The vice captain and  _ pseudo captain of the team _ , as the murmuring of the older club members are anything to go by, smiles at them benevolently and genuinely, standing aside from the others setting up the courts. 

“Hey kiddos,” he slips into casual language, slang rolling off his tongue easily, a desultory drawl of the syllables. “I’m Kim Woojin. Thank you for signing up to become members of this club.”

He pauses there, making significant eye contact with every one of them, all in a wonky line with nervous hands curled into fists and tucked inside gym shorts or twirled behind their backs. 

“We are already operating at 5 members geared for regular lineup, and I have to warn you that if you do get accepted, there is a chance any two of us nine here today will not be able to play as a regular player. I want you to consider that possibility of not being recognised on the court as a starting player if you do get benched. We are all greedy for a chance to play for the team and we all want that spotlight on us, the center of everything on our plays. We will always be a team, no matter if we have four or twenty, because connecting plays is what we strive to achieve here at JYP. But to the eyes of others, we will only be 7, so I ask you to think about this carefully. If you do end up leaving, we will not hold anything against you. In fact, it would be understandable to us. Consider the circumstances, and think about how you want to proceed.”

It doesn't take them that long to think about it.

“I mean,” Seungmin looks right at Woojin, “I come here to play volleyball. Being on court is definitely a goal in the future, but it is the playing that matters.”

“I don't play very well to what others perceive me as and who I'm supposed to be in their standards,” Jeongin shrugs, teeth gleaming the rare intimidating smile. “I play by the rules and boundaries of my own terms.”

“I made it here and I will make it further. Nothing is impossible. I have more than enough greed to fulfil my dreams,” Felix thumps his chest.

“I don't think,” Jisung concludes, everything that needs to be said had already been said. “You will have much to worry about us first years. We'll be right. Volleyball is about connecting plays and we'll do our best to fill in the gaps of the team's chinks. It's all or none.”

In a feat of rare bravery and sheer bullshit-ness, he smirks, “Plus, we'll have me to cover your asses. We'll be right.”

Hyunjin whoops and gesticulates at the volleyball cart. His lips read  _ I told you I was right!  _

“That’s awfully arrogant of you to assert,” Woojin passes a look from the top of his head to the top of his shoes, face betraying none of the disapproval his words indicate. “We will have to see for ourselves how well you play.”

“Can you get the debriefing done before dinner or is that too much to ask for?” Another club member hollers, lobbing balls at point blank trajectory at the middle of Changbin’s forehead and dodging as the boy headbutts them back, returning the sailing trajectory a hundred times worse.

“I’ll keep you in after dinner to clean if that’s how you want it to be!” Woojin hollers back and turns back to them with a disarming smile. “Now, where was I?”

The row of first years had frozen solid all over, from Jeongin to Felix.

Chan and Changbin gave no warning on the gang of extraordinary aliens that are the other club members of JYP’s boys’ volleyball club. 

Kudos to the kids that stay standing to be a senior member of this club. Jisung can’t imagine having to accommodate Chan, Changbin and people who throw volleyballs at each other to stop them from doing anything.

Chan breezes by, with a charming smile attached onto his face, hobbling as he adjusts his knee pads. 

“Hey,” he beams at them. “I’m Chan. Sorry Woojin and Jimin tried to scare you. We’ll get you all warmed up and introduce yourselves in a bit in front of Brian and the rest of the members, and we’ll figure out how to welcome you to the club.”

Brian can’t be the girl’s name, though it’s difficult to tell in Korea. Jisung met many Taylors in his moving around -  the girl could very well be their eccentric coach and with his luck, he reserved a space of favouritism for himself in her heart. Jimin. Jimin could be her name, but then again, the gender ambiguity throws him off and he doesn’t want to assume because assumptions will only point to him being an insensitive and rude ass -

An older guy in gym clothes waltzes by, lifting his hand in a salute to the general direction of the members. “Hey brats.”

“Brian!” Changbin chirps.

“Coach!” Unknown Teammate With Intense Lobbing Prowess crows. “You’re so late!”

Brian waves him away. “What’s it to you, Lee?”

“Unacceptable!” Hyunjin accuses him. “Unacceptable behaviour. You’re making us lose face in front of new members.”

“You say that as if we have any face to lose,” Woojin snorts.

“You say that like we haven't lost face within the first few moments we're gearing to have new members,” Changbin cartwheels to them, shortly and muscularly plowing their ways. “Hey I'm Changbin.”

“Uh,” Jeongin looks at him and then at Seungmin.  _ Yo what the fuck,  _ his eyes scream. “That's good to know?”

Felix reaches a hand out, charmingly blinding others from the buffering Jeongin committed in front of the senior members. “Hi. Lee Felix. I'm training to become a setter.”

It's like someone dropped a terrifying lizard in the middle of practice and it stunned the collective into shocked silence. 

Jisung can hear Chan losing it inside his head.

_ “Setter?”  _ He repeats, grin slicing up his face in true Joker fashion.  _ “You speak English too?” _

Felix weirdly enough doesn't take off in the other direction. He nods fervently and the two terrifying English speakers strike up a rapid fire conversation in that tongue while the rest of the non-English-speaking people just mill about and try to recover the threat of conversation that was Korean and more in touch with the majority of them before it barrelled off into English Territory.

“Following up from that,” Hyunjin skips over, enthused, “Hwang Hyunjin, middle blocker, the only middle blocker.”

“Oh hush you,” Woojin tuts, “hopefully we'll get more this year.”

Hopefully.

Jeongin and Seungmin bow in tandem. “We're spikers!” 

Jeongin beams, “Yang Jeongin!”

Seungmin bows again, “Kim Seungmin. Aspiring ace.”

Okay maybe not hopefully.

“But you're so tall and growing,” Hyunjin whines, “block with me~”

“I block with you,” Woojin reminds him, “and we'll see how things are. Positions change all the time.”

_ Please make this true _ , his face screams, desperate. Jisung notes that he doesn't look at him.

The only other unknown person there quirks his eyebrow, ball under his arm. “Ah yes. I'm Lee Minho, wing spiker.”

Changbin tosses them a cheeky salute, “Seo Changbin, second year, wing spiker, aspiring ace!”

"So humbled,” Minho coos, “such a beautiful liar.”

Changbin looks at him, “I don't know if you're complimenting me or insulting me, but I'm going to have to ask you to stop that.” 

Minho's retaliating kick is evaded too easily. Jisung checks in on Seungmin, lest he faints right there on the floor. Poor alien child. He thinks normal people are in abundance, in this hub that's known for attracting eccentricity. Poor, poor Kim Seungmin.

“While they're doing that and trying to maim each other,” Woojin flashes them excellently maintained World Leader Smile. “Our captain, English speaking Bang Chan, is a setter.”

“I thought you're the leader?” Jeongin frowns. “You act more like one.”

“This is what I mean,” Hyunjin shakes his head. “Bang-ssi, just give the jersey to Woojin-hyung.”

“You're too kind,” Woojin ignores him, smiling benevolently at Jeongin. “But he is the leader, even if he doesn't act like it.”

Noise explodes from the English Territory. The girl and Coach Brian have gravitated there, conversing in hushed English with the pair of setters. 

The noise was Bang Chan with his percussion ensemble ruckus whenever he shrieks. “That's rude and I can hear you!” Chan flails his arms in the air. “I am very captain-ly!”

“Sure, love!” Woojin waves him away. 

“Whatever keeps you sleeping at night, Cap!” Changbin chimes in, winking at Jisung. 

Chan’s horrified is only one part funny to the nine parts honking laughter

Years passed, but people are still little shits to Chan. Nothing much had really changed from middle school, except now that Chan is taller and bulkier and he looks to be the type to be able to bench press twelve of Jisung - and he has muscle mass. It’s ridiculous how capable and strong Chan is. He can hold the sky off Atlas’s shoulder for a solid day and would feel the brunt of the sky on his back only when his body is undergoing entropy and he squeezes out an  _ oh shit I no longer have solid and standing bones should have taken care of my calcified spine earlier on in life.  _ The idiot is going to die at twenty years of age. For sure.

“Now that we’re way past the daily Tease The Incapable Cap, we should wrap everything up,” Huynjin claps decisively, “we have one more introduction under way, and then we can begin the initiation for the kiddies.”  __

Woojin and Minho glance immediately at him, not even bothering with their preconceptions about his name, skill set and who he is. 

He has to oblige to expectations and social norms of introduction, does he not? Play within 

“My name is Han Jisung. I'm trying out for the position of libero,” he states. Succinct. To the point. A bow that snaps at a rough right angle from his waist. “Thank you for having me.”

He did not come here with the expectations that he would be made a regular based on his past achievements and history with 3RACHA. He only has his skills and the charms that will unnerve those on the other side of the net at his disposal and nothing more. He comes to the club to establish himself as a pillar of defence and he is certain of his skills more than the potential of his skill set to guarantee him a regular position. 

The row of third years appraise him. Felix had been released from the drilling Chan kidnapped him into. The coach and their manager stand by the side with their clipboards, pens tapping onto paper in a staccato of  _ perhaps maybe why not.  _

"We'll run a game if we have time,” Coach Younghyun addresses them, but his eyes are on Jisung - sharp, calculating. “Five on each court. First years, get yourselves divided up. Mingle. The rest of you, go and socialise. Don't all lump yourselves together. Promote the club and yourselves.”

Hyunjin the Sentinel of the Volleyball Club Gym bounds over to them, vibrating with palpable nervous energy and exuberance of someone who naturally draws people close to him despite their various distaste of the general human population. Chan himself radiates this I Love Everyone vibe - a commendable effort of both latent charisma and sheer forcefulness of others to be pulled into looking his way when he enters a room. 

“Okay first years,” he claps his hands together, voice preppy, “sell me your best qualities.”

Seungmin thinks, fast, on his feet, seemingly. “You tell us what your best qualities are.”

Hyunjin isn’t even blown off kilter. In fact, he glows, like he wanted the question to be deflected back to him so he can self-advertise. 

“Well, I’m hardworking, dedicated, patient, loyal and accepting of everyone regardless of their aptitudes in their chosen forms of pursuit,” he huffs, words perfectly enunciated, practiced, a habit to rattle them off rather than having to think about them. As far as advertisements go, this one would sell a lot.

“I like the sound of this,” he extends a hand out right away, “he sounds like someone I can trust.”

“This is like a job interview,” Jeongin observes, “and I would hire you on the spot.”

Hyunjin beams on both accounts of his pitch.

Felix and Seungmin remain quiet.

“Aren’t those,” Felix frowns.

“ - descriptors of qualifying traits of Hufflepuff students from the Sorting Hat?” Seungmin continues, frown etching further on his face.

“You’re just describing yourself using your Hogwarts house traits,” Felix reaches a state of revelation, except it's not exactly enlightening as much as sounding. He gapes in open betrayal. “That's  _ cheating _ .”

Hyunjin's businessman smile doesn’t waver. “I hold Harry Potter in high esteem.” 

“That's not a no to cheating,” Seungmin hisses.

“There is no game, and I am not cheating.” Hyunjin maintains, face the picture of Purity and I have done no wrong how dare you accuse me of such blasphemy.

“There is a favouritism game, and you're winning,” Felix insists.

“Cheater,” Seungmin accuses. “I don't like you.”

Hyunjin plasters on a patented Too Bad So Sad™ winning grin. “That's a real shame. It is a greater shame that I'll get over it.”

From the net, Changbin nags. “No bullying each other! We have to all get along,  _ as a team.  _ We'll bond even if I have to make you sit in a circle and sing kumbaya.”

Jisung and Hyunjin flinch involuntarily. Changbin’s particular brand of kumbaya hurts because he just stretches limbs really hard and holds them in uncomfortable yoga positions until they yield and agree to get along from the genuine depths of fear in the pits of their stomachs. 

“Okay, well,” Hyunjin resumes, million dollar smile firmly attached on his face once again, “next person who makes a pop culture reference gets to play middle blocker on my team.”

Seungmin bristles, “I don't want to play anywhere near a dirty cheater.”

Jeongin ignores him and reaches for Hyunjin excitedly, Busan accent spilling from his braces. “Me! Me! Me! Pick me! I am a super quick learner! Take me away from this grinch boy!”

Changbin's admonishing  _ don't make me come over there and spray you stop being violent to each other  _ is drowned out to Seungmin flying at Jeongin and doing a scarily accurate flying roundhouse kick. Jeongin dodges and ducks behind Hyunjin and the three of them get stuck in this ball of escalating conflict of teenage volleyball player cat fighting.

Jisung is glad he distinguished the Crazy Factor in the first year batch and promptly removed himself from it. Felix coughs out bouts of laughter behind his hand on his mouth, eyes crinkling and Jisung contents to stand by his side and watch the carnage unfold.

Chan and Woojin crowd around the nets, whispering with the coach. The girl wanders over, impish smile attached on her face. She waves him over, the back of her hand beckoning and vaguely menacing. 

He glances briefly at Felix, a silent  _ if I die avenge me.  _ His telepathy is subpar at best and Chan, an actual genius, is the only working nut job case who can interpret his glances. Jisung glances at people to take the piss out of them and under very strenuous situations, attempt to communicate without hand signs. 

Felix blinks and nods very significantly, as if he sits in the wavelength of Telepathy Buddy Association and Genius Body Language Land.

Odd.

Jisung jogs to the girl.

“Forgot to introduce myself,” the girl grins, “Park Jimin. Manager third year.”

“I'll be in your care from now on,” he snaps into an obligatory bow. “Why'd you call me over?”

“Ya too tense,” Jimin drawls, tapping the back of his hands. “Loosen up. Club's goin’ nowhere. It'll be on the ground and here tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, day after that too.”

He lets out a shuddering breath, shoulders rattling, as he checks himself. Glancing around, he does find that indeed, the club room is firmly attached to the ground.

“The people too, won't go anywhere,” Jimin smiles, gentler now. “If you're too uptight, warm ups won't look too good on ya joints. Take a deep breath. Acclimatise. Find points of focus and zoom in. Then zoom out. I'll be here, the brats will be here. We're goin’ nowhere.”

“How -?” He chokes, completely rattled. There is finesse in which he holds his thoughts within his skin and builds up defences to which people can't crash through. Chan and Changbin are allowed that privilege of being privy to his bare thoughts, them being his long term friends and the teammates he would willingly travel the distance for. But others who are barred out from the first instances Jisung chooses to interact with? They should hold no key to open the vault in which he stores his insecurities deep down below.

“You keep looking at Channie and Binnie, like you're gonna lose them if you don't look them every minute. Feels like ya gonna stop blinking too the more this orientation to the club continues. Breathe, Han, we're all here,” she squeezes his wrist, tone mollified and empathetic. “Nothing lasts forever, it's true, but this lasts for a long while. Instead of looking back and freaking yourself out, look forward and enjoy. Or is that not the job of a libero?”

She knows. She knows how it's like. She knows about being a libero and always on the lookout at the backs of your teammates. She  _ knows _ .

“Take it easy, kid,” she lets go, patting his shoulder in a Bro Dap and Clap.  _ We can have words later. For now, this is all I can tell you. _

She claps her hands, a reverberating slap of palms, and hollers. A lot of heads turn. 

“Okay children, let's run through some drills. Receiving practice, then spikes for the overexcited and neurotic spikers,” she announces, “so line up and make yourself shorter than my line of sight so I can keep track of who had done what.”

Changbin had stormed over at some point and separated the furball mess of Hyunjin-Seungmin-Jeongin apart and made them hold hands and sing kumbaya. Jimin winks at him once more and jogs to the coach, already ordering him to begin setting up for drills.

Felix fills in the gap she left behind. “I find stomping on the floor a few times established my grounding,” he casually comments, as if they've been discussing stock market values and grounding techniques is just one of those topics that people can dive into without preambles.

It's not, and Jisung’s face twists in a critical slant as an involuntary response to this out-of-nowhere advice. Then he blinks, words registering and rattling inside his brain.

“Did you just make a pun? Whilst giving me tips on how to not lose my last figurative marble?”

Felix shrugs.

Jisung squints harder. “What are you even trying to do?”

“My best,” the other boy earnestly replies.

Jisung stares at him. “Tell me you're joking. _Please_.”

“No?”

“Lee, don't think I'm below not punching pretty boys, because I'm not and I'm on my last Good Behaviour pill for the day so you better shut it quick or -”

Felix widens his eyes, Bambi style. “Or you'll what with me, Han, throw me out of the club? Hurt me? With what weapon? A  _ volleyball?” _

He has time to scream in surprisingly genuine horror as Jisung pitches a shoe at his shoulder blade, the trajectory with a maddening spin on it to hurt.

 

(Later on, when the third years unofficially welcome them to the volleyball club, they accept the gesture with matching puzzling frowns.

“You have good hearts,” Woojin smiles winningly.

“Good skills,” Chan nods sagely.

“And you get along well! You basically tick all our boxes!” Minho flourishes both hands out and nearly hitting Chan in the arm. 

“We don't get along though?” Seungmin’s head leans to the left. “I just got hit by a well aimed spike. I don't think that's  _ getting along,  _ let alone  _ well.” _

“Aggressive attacks on the person is considered team bonding here at JYP,” Hyunjin explains slowly and with a casual air, as if that's normal and healthy.

Jisung blinks, then turns to Felix, mouth on a hard line. Jeongin’s mouth hangs open, his nose scrunching as he's processing the words. Seungmin and Felix cross their arms with twin frowns, not blinking and heroically not reacting to the truth bomb.

“I'm leaving,” Jisung declares and Jeongin walks out, muttering  _ I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now.  _

“See you tomorrow for twice daily practice!” Woojin calls after them, tone the exact same one his parents had tagged on this morning when he left for school.

“Goodness me, Kim Woojin,” he hears Minho drawls, “it’s almost like you are their parent.”

“Minho, it’s almost like you are asking to be nailed on the back of your head with one of my unreasonably harsh spikes.”

“Chan, Chan, he’s bullying me.”

“Don’t get me involved, I’m not a part of this. Geroff me! No! Demon, _begone!”)_

  
  


“Come over,” Woojin smiles, “time to show off.”

The vice captain himself appoints himself to spiking duties and promises that he will attempt to receive One Tricky Spike from Changbin who is accredited as a Vending Machine of Tricky Spikes. 

Jisung volunteers to have his turn just before Woojin. Part of him wants to demonstrate his calibre before the defensive specialist of the team, part of him wants to assess the team’s receiving forms and work out a strategy to cover their weak spots. Almost all of him wants to be obscured by the multiple players receiving before him, so he can lounge in the unknown depths and be seen or heard by no one. The player who aims to be excellent at defence is never one to stand out significantly on court.

By shielding himself away from sight now, he’s almost on his way to becoming a good player. 

He notes down who has natural instincts in predicting the trajectories of the ball (almost everyone, excepting Jeongin and Chan), who have the speed to chase the less than convenient spikes on sheer instincts (Minho, Changbin and sometimes Jeongin) and with calculation (Chan, Felix, Hyunjin). Seungmin is all over the place for his first two receives, but his gears are set in place once there’s that audible click of his shoulder and knees. There is a lot of natural athleticism on this team, which is always helpful. But there’s also a fine number of those who on this team who need to finely tune their instincts to channel into playable skills. 

He himself is a mixture of terrifying instincts and verifiable skills. He’s acutely aware of where the ball might go, which noise will each direction will make, the steps Woojin takes to deliver which spikes and how far they will travel -

Each spike is returned in a perfect arc to the setter. A reliable receive that ensures the setter is able to get under it and sets up an attack. A safety point, a point of trust.

Woojin smiles, wide and big on the other side of the net.

He feels like he ticked another box on the list of arbitrary criteria the third years concocted with the sole aim to mess with him and to test his true abilities, whichever one they conspire to run him through.

“Binnie!” Woojin ducks under the net, elbow guards constricting obviously bulging bicep muscle even at rest - Jisung hopes he never flexes, it could do some serious damage on morale and esteem of this twig team. “Come and spike.”

“Can Chan toss or am I just doing serves at you?”

“Figure it out. You have a metre to,” the vice captain winks once more at Jisung. “Thanks for playing, Jisungie.”

He pushes back his hair into a hair band, barely able to fuck unruly strands behind his ears, that a serve spirals onto his side of the court. Jeongin wheezes and the ball bounces back up, a standard arc in the air, back to the setter.

Woojin had dived forward to receive that spike serve, despite appearing like he isn't prepared. 

Jisung vibrates with excitement, at being able to learn from his underclassman. He also thrums with an undercurrent of inadequacy, at unreasonable comparison to Woojin’s form and techniques.

“Man,” Hyunjin stretches, “senior players are scary. Can't match up with him now given that he has two years on us.”

Jisung catches his eyes. It's like Hyunjin  _ knows  _ that he's unreasonably comparing himself on grounds that aren't even compatible between himself and Woojin. 

“But we can always compensate by practice!” Minho chirps. “Hard work pays! Really well!”

Jisung drowns out his insecurity, laughing along with his new teammates. 

Spiking, is, well, another game in the ballpark. Jisung had noted that the team moved solely on instincts when playing on defense, which is a normal reaction to receiving, at a beginner's level. He doesn't forget that JYP High prides themselves on their versatile playing styles, and there have been visible measures to bridge that mediocre skill set, but they've got some time to rectify the gap between levels of skills of offense and defense before practice games.

Spiking, is, spiking is  _ really _ this team's forte. Everyone has good form, everyone has decent swing and ball control up in midair, everyone spikes hard and all around the court,  _ in bounds.  _

He hopes the coach lets him bully these massively talented but unguided souls to passable receiving skills, because otherwise they're on their way to being kicked everywhere in official tournaments. 

Felix pulls off a successful cross and Jisung pretends to act surprised, as if he isn't aware that this team is aggressively big on the offensive playing front.

“Having fun, chipmunk?” Chan grins at him, spinning the ball inside his palms. 

“Your team sucks at receiving,” Jisung tells him and runs up for a spike, a delicate snap of his wrist to deliver the ball at the back line. 

Wow.  _ Wow _ . Chan is scarily accurate with that one. He jumped a bit too low compared to everyone else, and he jumps at a different tempo, but the big humbling fool still pulls off a toss that is at Jisung's maximum height and reach to hit such a perfectly landed spike.

He has so much to catch up to Chan.

“Move, move, move,” Changbin shoves him aside, “my turn to play now, let's do that thing with the net downward spike.”

Chan's smile slips off, fatherly concern settling in. “Binnie, you nearly sprained your wrist last time you tried that. Just spike straights and crosses today and let the swelling goes down. It'll be much better than potentially ruining your wrist.”

Jisung pricks up his ears, squinting at Changbin who shrinks under their collective Disappointed In You head shake™.

“Oi, Seo,” Coach Brian points a clipboard at his face. “No funny net business, or I'll ban you from playing for a week.”

Changbin is appalled. “What? Coach, no, what?”

“I'm watching you, Seo Changbin,” Brian stabs two menacing fingers at him, the universal sign for  _ my eyes are on your every move and you’re dead if you move _ .

“Count us in too,” Jisung chimes in, tacking on a morose  _ Seo Changbin _ as his parting words.

Changbin sulks and whines, but pulls off a row of perfect straights and crosses anyways, per decree of the coach and the sets Chan steers him into. 

They bicker as they work together, along with Jisung nagging on the sidelines.

It feels like middle school again. 3RACHA with their gears back in track, as if they have never drifted apart or played in different teams until now. “Thanks for coming today, little ones,” Minho drawls as they pack up, Jeongin carting one end of a net pole with Jisung on the other. “Fun drills, ey?”

“Why are your receives so,” Jisung makes a face, hefting the pole higher, “meh?”

“We specialise in offense,” Minho flicks water droplets from the drink bottles at his eyes. Jisung doesn’t even bother with blinking them out. “This is our best at attempting to defend.”

“Too much on offense won't be too good on ya,” he continues. “You need to be more prepared to pull off defense if your offense goes south. There’s no guarantee how south things could go in a game, you have to be prepared -”

“And too much stressing won't be too pretty on ya face too, first year,” Minho stashes the net and pole away, locking the door. “Remember that.”

Jeongin doesn't seem too clear on what's happening, but Jisung feels his elbow clutched and pulled away, some half-ass excuse on the child's lips about  _ I need his help for English, sorry, bye, gotta go! _

“Why are you always picked on by the seniors?” Jeongin frowns. “I don't think you did anything rude. I don't think you did anything, period.”

“It’s alright. Things have always been like that,” he reassures the boy, gently extracting himself away. 

“What, seniors telling you off that you're too tough on yourself? That's not very healthy.”

_ Please let me go,  _ his head screams.  _ You're too close. You'll be able to hear everything. _

“Hmm, I learnt to get over it pretty quickly since middle school,” he plasters on a convincing smile, “it's not a big problem anymore.”

“I only just met you, but somehow I can tell you're bullshitting me,” Jeongin lets go, sceptical and unconvinced.

“You don't have any obligation to care about me once we're off the court,” Jisung reminds him gently. “I'll be right.”  _ I don't need friends. I'll be alright by my own, supporting others.  _

“If you say so,” Jeongin doesn't step away. “And I have basic human decency, Han Jisung, that's why I care. You don't have to be friends to ask others how they're doing.”

“If you insist,” Jisung shrugs, taking the first couple of steps away. “I don't really need it, your concern.”

“If you say so,” Jeongin repeats, making a face. 

Changbin drapes all over his back once he changed out of the sports uniform and into casual clothes, cooing about how much he'd grown and how he's taller than Changbin can ever peak.  _ It's not fair. The children keep on growing. _

“How do you find your new friends?” Changbin removes himself from Jisung.

“They're not my friends,” Jisung denies right away, “and we will work well on court, our dynamics can definitely be improved.”

“You need friends, Jisungie,” Changbin nudges into him. “Friends outside of the court. Volleyball is big on your mind, me too, and so does everyone else here, but you should cultivate real relationships outside of the superficial court game plays.”

“I have friends. I have you and Chan-hyung  you guys are all I need. I don't have need for more friends beyond what we have,” 

Changbin’s eyes soften, his fingers slotting into Jisung’s hair, like every other time he delivered bad news to him. “3RACHA is a foundation in which us three came together, but we've grown apart now and we have other relationships to extend beyond that. I'm not saying Chan and you aren't important to me, but I have developed relationships outside of you two that grow me in a way 3RACHA isn't quite the answer for.”

Jisung can almost hear the words Changbin isn't saying. 

“I know you still hold some ghosts from middle school, our heyday, and the day Channie-hyung graduated because we left you, but that's always going to be a problem in our friendship. There is that age barrier that no matter how we subvert, it won't go away. We have managed up until now, but we aren't as close as we used to be. This is through no fault of ours, because distance and time separate the hearts and we can always be each other's friends no matter what,” Changbin tells him, walking out into the dusking sky. “Your year level will be with you until you graduate. I daresay befriending them will bridge that gap of age difference, because they're not going anywhere, unlike Chan who will go after a few more months and me next year. We won't be with you as long as the other first years will. They're your teammates as well as potential friends. Give the friendship thing a try.”

Jisung makes a face. “I don't want to give the friendship thing a try.”

“Well, it's either you take the initiative or the friendship happens to you,” the older boy shrugs and pulls the strap of his bag higher, patting his hair twice. “You're not on your own when you play and cope with life, kiddo, remember that.”

“Uh huh,” he purses his lips, very much convinced by the lecture. “I believe in you, I really do.”

“Show a bit more appreciation for my senior wisdom damn it,” Changbin swears at him and promptly ditches Jisung for a chance to run up at Minho and throw himself on his back. “Later, chipmunk!”

Jisung doesn't bother with a proper goodbye, heading back inside to wait for Chan. He sorts through his conversations/confrontations with Changbin, Minho, Jeongin, Jimin and Felix. On a completely hypothetical scale, he can avoid all of them by pretending he has selective amnesia and had conveniently forgotten everything that was said against him on the first day of school and practice drill. He too can also run and prevent the unfortunate accident of being shut tight in the same space as any number of those individuals. 

Right now though, right now he needs Jimin and her advantage of being off the court and able to observe everything. Overall defense can improve drastically if he is able to convince her to dedicate more time to noting down forms and possible tactics.

He indulges in Chan’s insistence in walking him to the bus stop, the two of them lounging at the bench. Chan lives in the school’s dorms and has absolutely no obligation to be here, except that he’s infuriatingly sweet and doting on the children he adopts under his wing, and there they are, sitting around and waiting for Jisung’s bus. 

“So,” he digs his shoe into the ground, insisting on not making eye contact with his hyung, “what’s Jimin’s deal?”

“Ey, Jisungie ~” Chan’s voice holds a teasing edge to it. “Isn’t she a bit too out of your league?”

“When I asked ‘what’s her deal’, I’m pretty sure it sounds more like I want to fight her rather than I want to seek her out romantically, but go off I guess,” he snarks and picks up his feet in time away from Chan lashing his foot out. “Oi, you’re the one forcing your heteronormative views onto young, non-straight me. It’s only fair I call you out on it.”

“I was teasing,” Chan rolls his eyes, “and she was a libero too, in middle school.”

“Not in high school?” 

The bus signals onto the lane, pulling up along the kerb.

“Two reasons, Sungie,” Chan holds out a hand, pulling him up. 

“One,” the bus brakes in front of the kerb, squealing loud enough to momentarily drown out traffic behind and all around them, “she got injured.”

“And two,” the flow of people from the bus ebbs and Jisung gets on, carrying Chan’s half-pained, half-resigned words. “She was disallowed to play as a regular for a long time. It wore her conviction in the sport down, because she was no longer part of a team, so she quit.”

The next day sees Jisung hunting down where Park Jimin’s classroom is - 2-B, third year, weird room near the music studio - and slamming down a notebook as a form of hello.

“What’s this?” She looks up at him, not even bothered with a pretentious ‘hello’ back. 

“When I’m on court, I can’t see much of everything else, but you can. Please help me record down forms and positions and observations on court that I can’t see.” He rattles off, then wheezes in a breath.

She crosses her fingers, lacing them under her chin, gaze even. Almost amused.

“What do I get out of it?”

“A chance to play volleyball that was never given to you before,” he matches her stare, “you’re a part of this team and I need your eyes in order for us to improve.”

“Didn’t know you appointed yourself as pseudo captain next to Woojinnie,” she smirks, taking away her clasped hands. 

“Was that a no?” 

“It’s not a yes,” she grins, all Cheshire-like. “See you at practice, Han Jisung.”

He knows a dismissal when he hears one. Taking his leave, he lingers at the doorway, glancing back.

Seungmin, who passed by his class to say hello, tells him he has A Face on and  _ you should dial it down, I’m getting the creeps from not making eye contact with you, Han.  _

Jisung tells him to bugger off and go bother Jeongin who actually will react to his shoddy insults. 

Park Jimin had flipped over his notebook, moleskine and brand new, with a personalised note at the start.  _ You don't have to wear a jersey to be a player, just as you won't stop being a player even if your injury. Those who stand on the ground by their own two feet are more than strong enough, and I hope you recognise your strength and would be willing to lend some to us lacking mortals. _

 

Jimin waves the notebook in his line of sight before walking around to check up on every member, occasionally shaking her head in slight disappointment as certain individuals like Hyunjin keep stepping on their too long shoelaces and talking via pacing a hole to the ground.

Jisung feels a vicious victory in taking one more step to perfecting this team. They’ll match up to the calibre of acceptable and they can proceed even further.

Second day is a go.

 

A week passes by - 

With every practice session, he feels closer to the goal of victory, of unshakable and undoubted championship. From the seniors and pros of the sport. From himself. They can they can  _ they can do this - _

He buries the tremors in his hands inside the pockets of his shorts. No wavering. He cannot be weak now, or drag others down to the pit of his deteriorating thoughts. He cannot cannot  _ cannot bring them down, no, no he cannot - _

“Oi!” Coach claps his hands, drawing their attention his way. Jisung makes uncomfortable eye contact. He feels stared all over, even though the creases in the coach’s forehead are perhaps how he always sees his players, perpetual annoyance and judgement. It’s not exactly new in terms of reactions to teen athletes. Jisung tries to not read too much into it, shoving all the shivering that makes it across one shoulder to another to deep recesses within his marrow, so that they have harder time slinking back up his spine and across skin again. 

“Ten laps around the gym, then stretch!” The coach barks and the entourage of teenagers snap into a sprint. 

Practice kicks off spectacularly with Jeongin pitching his forehead onto the linoleum ground instead of his feet forward, with barely any warning to anyone except Minho who is next to him. They drop and roll, a heap of fallen teenage boys too shocked to check if they've sprained their arms.

Jisung jogs over, pulls them up by the wrist. Checks them over, ascertains that they're fine. Murmurs an apology for not being fast enough to pull Jeongin back up.

Minho has this look in his eyes where he waves Jisung away, reassuring him that it's not his fault.

Jisung keeps a close eye on them for the rest of the jogs around the gym anyways.

Warm ups are, well, as safe as warm ups can be. Nobody pull a muscle, nobody die from heat exhaustion - it’s looking stable, as far as things are going. Chan is also keeping tabs on the condition of each member of the team, muttering under his breath on how to coordinate attacks.

Seems like a good day so far. And nobody have given heed to his earlier hiccup. He’s safe. He can keep playing. He won’t be left behind.

Off to the side, he hears the coach and Felix murmuring in rapid English. His foreign language skills have gone to scratch by the time he hit the airport in Malaysia, but he heard a phrase that is coupled with a tone that requires no translation -  _ high strung. _

He isn’t high strung, he’s just prepared. It is vital that the team rises up and he’s working with lost time. They need to be prepared, and he himself can’t let the standards slip. No, no he cannot -

The teams are drawn by lots and he had spaced out enough to be shaken back into reality by a concerned Hyunjin, arm gripping the rapid pulse under the skin on his arm.

“You right?” Hyunjin flicks his eyes back down to the pulse point on his joint. “Your pulse is all over the pl -”

“Yes,” he yanks himself away, tucking his arm against his chest. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

He winces as Chan and Changbin wave from the other side of the net, chatting genially with Jeongin and Seungmin. The coach himself steps into the starting position of a 5 v 5 game, as the server. 

“I’m a setter, so chill,” he rolls his eyes, drawing out his syllables as the stiffness of Jisung’s arms become apparent to everyone in the room and himself. “You’re in good hands. I have more experience than Chan. I daresay I’m even better.”

There is cricket silence on his side of the net.

“Oi,” he gripes, “back me up, brats.”

“I must not tell lies,” Hyunjin shakes his head. “Sorry.”

Seungmin raises a fist. “Is that another fucking Harry Potter reference, you nerd?”

Hyunjin refuses to show guilt on his face.

Chan has to hold Seungmin back, flailing long arms from behind the net. “You better reinforce those specs because I’m going to break them clean off your face -!”

“Excuse me, no violence on either side of the net,” coach tuts his tongue at them, “we’re here to be civil and practice, not maim each other. Do that in your own time.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but Felix and Woojin join them on the court, the first year boy nodding in agreement with whatever Woojin is saying, tight expressions on their faces.

Jisung watches everything unfolds as if he is inside a fish bowl, water swallowing him whole. The headaches he attained since last night return in full battalion, aggressively hammering out a percussive performance within the confines of his skull. 

“Jisung?” Hyunjin’s voice returns, vaguely from the right. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he grunts out, “I’ll be right. Look after everyone else.”

Which is, of course, when everything starts heading to hell in a handbasket.

When they run through receiving practice, the older members gave everyone nice and considerate spikes. Never had Lee Minho, the rat, the liar, the pretty boy in artistically arranged brown hair, infamous service ace that puts the fear of a monotheistic God in the collective hearts of teenage volleyball players in the Gangnam district of Seoul, spikes.

Now he knows why. Element of surprise. Lee Minho is the first serve of the day. They’re a little bit screwed over. 

Given the current defensive calibre of this team, that being barely existing, it’s a surprise no one’s arms got ripped clean off the socket from making a one touch with that spike serve. It’s a spike from the back line, no exaggerations about it - hard and furiously pinpointed to crush his side into being unable to receive it.

Minho was also the one with high praise for the offensive calibre of his team. Jisung will pay that, backpedalling to reach for the one touch Hyunjin got them. 

That doesn’t play out quite so well. He should have done better, should have prevented the score from being given away - the angle went awry and Felix is also chasing after it and Woojin called out for them to stop - 

“Boys,” he stands over them, blinking after the ball that hit out of bounds. “Come back. Let’s take back that point.” 

Jisung’s headaches increase in intensity. He flinches as Woojin’s fingers scrape by him, eyes seeking for an explanation of the nervous energy he’s vibrating off. Jisung shakes his head  _ no _ and stalks off, blinking as he recalls the trajectory of where the ball had been, bounced off the blockers’ fingers. There should be a way, there is a way -

He quickly turns to Jimin, eyes asking her about her observations off-court.

Her comment is succinct and it bites to the bone. 

“You didn’t call out for that one touch. Neither you or Felix did. You’re not playing as a team.”

Jisung sees Chan and Changbin exchange high fives with each other, to Minho and to the other first years.

His vision spins into a kaleidoscope of indistinct colours and rights itself again. He doesn’t notice the worried glances his teammates throw to each other, coach with a whistle to his lips. 

“Okay, okay, I can do this, it’s only practice,” he mutters, failing to reassure his rising heartbeats, matching the maddening rhythm of his escalating terror thoughts. 

_ There is no time you have no time you failed that you fail even at practice how will you be good enough as a player that deserves to play alongside older and more experienced hyungs your all nighters are useless you cannot amount to anything that is worth a second glance - _

He steps back on the court and receives the serve perfectly, momentarily numb with the satisfaction of conquering the present problem. Coach sets the receive back up, Hyunjin dumps it over, the ball sliding against the net, yet Jeongin dives forward alongside Seungmin, both calling out for a chance ball and flicking it back up, Chan ducking under.

The sight of Chan setting to Changbin, the arcs of his friend’s back and arm distract Jisung from the present knowledge of how he moved to be in the direct path of a straight and should be in the mindset to receive -

Changbin’s patented Now Die Under My Wrath™ nails him on the forehead and knocks him off his feet, with someone’s knee jerk response of a strangled scream humming in the background as he tries to blink himself awake.

“Out, out,” there are hands under his head. 

“ -isung. Jis - Han,” he blinks himself groggily awake. “You need to stop playing, right this moment.”

Middle school and graduation comes back. No.  _ No.  _ He’ll be all alone, while the others play. He'll be benched, he won't be able to stand where the others stand. No. He wasn’t paying enough attention, wasn’t careful enough, wasn’t  _ good enough - _

“Jisung,” coach Brian kneels in front of him, hand gripping his elbow, “let’s take a walk outside, yeah? Come on, you and me. Stop the game, kiddos, we’ll be back.”

He’s hauled on his feet, supported and strong armed outside of the gym. The wind washes over his face, a much needed respite from the stuffy air and poor circulation of the gym. He chokes in fresh air, head spinning less.

“Did you eat before coming in today?” Brian jostles his arm.

He makes a noise that is half  _ I ate  _ and half  _ but not enough and would probably get me called out on it.  _ He hopes Brian’s ears are tuned to just one side of that noise.

“Let’s get food,” the older man decides, steering him to the kitchen. “We’re not going to talk volleyball on the way there, rest easy. I just want to check up on you ever since you joined.”

“But why?”

“You seem so alone and high strung, kid, it makes me worried. And it’s not like you’re any bad at interacting with others - heard ya telling jokes and making bad puns just fine - it’s just,” Brian stops him before the doors, voices clamouring inside.

“It’s just?”

“You’re primarily focused on winning and improvements, which, yes, we all are,” Brian doesn’t look at him. “But you’re almost too invested in them, that it sucks the fun out of it for everyone else.”

“Playing without winning isn’t fun, coach,” he points out.

“Playing without enjoying the sport and interacting with your teammates isn’t fun. Losing is a part of playing and it would bring about improvements. You try to expedite that very emotionally traumatising process all by your own and try to carry the team on your shoulders - that’s not the way to go. That’s the opposite direction that I, as coach, needs you to be heading down into.” The doors open, with a member from the national girl’s team peeking out and smiling at them both. “Hey Yeonie. This is Jisung, first year libero. He’s on his way to becoming number one problem child at my club. Jisung, Jeongyeon, wing spiker.”

“Hey,” Jeongyeon offers a hand. “Congrats for making Brian lose his last couple of brain cells. I think he went grey for a few strands behind his ears. D’you want some brownies? We’re making them right now and I know there would be more people coming, so I made extras. Wait here, I’ll come get them.”

Jisung doesn’t see the need for him to come here.

“Why am I here?” He asks without preamble. “I’m alright now, I will get better at receiving the spikes, let me go ba -”

Jeongyeon returns, with the ace Jihyo in tow, waving at them.

“Hey guys,” she smiles, “crashing our bonding time, are we?”

“You bond together all the time, gee, you can spare some starving child food, and poor frail little me,” Brian complains good-naturedly and waves goodbye as the girls shove him away, bidding Jisung a warm farewell.

He waits, confused as to why he is here and cinching food off those who are in the middle of practice.

“They don’t have practice on Tuesdays,” it’s Tuesday where they are standing in, “and they all know each other, inside and out. They’re friends on and off the court, and they hold the indisputable title and recognition as the nation’s women’s team.”

Brian makes him sit out for the rest of practice.

"So tell me, Han Jisung, when was the time you willingly extend that hand of friendship to those in your club without the pretext of winning between you?”

 

(Woojin too had told him. “You are your own harshest critic.”

“I know,” he admitted to it. “And I can't do anything about it.”

“Can't or won't, Han Jisung?”

“I don't know,” he didn’t look at Woojin (dare he say his hyung?)

  
  


As far as suspicious texts go, Felix's curt  _ hey cash me ousside at the park how bout that _ holds no reasonable pretext for caution.

But Jisung has almost a sixth sense for danger - he plays a sport where danger is a constant, a description, a safety warning - and given the earlier event of that week, he should take extra caution. He turns to the park during his nightly jogs, body tensed and ready to sprint away if Felix emerges and seething in homicidal rage. Granted, Felix doesn’t do homicidal urges, rage or anger, but Jisung is operating on a Felix Radar, picking up subtle wavelengths that the mild-mannered protege exudes and work from there.

Felix leans against the lamp post at the park, head tipped to the night sky. He’s gazing at Cassiopeia. Jisung doesn’t remember how he knows that, just that he does.

"Hey,” he jogs over, “I came via summons.”

“Pretty sure I summoned Hyunjin, not you,” a side of Felix’s face twitches into an almost-smile, “you’re way too much of a goody-two-shoe for a demonic contract.”

“Um, rude,” he bristles playfully, “I’m here as a replacement for Hwang. It’ll do for now.”

“I suppose,” Felix peels his clothes off the cold metal, giving him a gloved hand. “Walk with me.”

Kill Bill sirens fire off inside Jisung’s head. He swerves by the proffered hand and loops his arm under and through Felix’s elbow, steering them to the riverside and the bypass bridge. 

Without preamble, the boy on his left puts one foot ahead and tells him that he was being a lil’ difficult shit at practice. 

At least, that’s what his brain surmises it to.

Felix’s actual words translate to something along the lines of  _ You were kinda out of it during practice, freezing up like that. I just wanted to check up on you, see if you’re alright after receiving Seungmin’s spike with your chin.  _

“I’m fine,” he reassures Felix, with absolutely no conviction in it.

Felix clicks his tongue. Jisung silently gives himself three more minutes until he's buried in a ditch in this park, because Felix clicking his tongue is the normal people's equivalence of them sharpening a knife. The smart and sensible thing to do is run, as his brain helpfully reminds him, but then he has to extricate himself and Felix would know, and then the Disappointed Telling Off would play out and Jisung would be really, truly,  _ dead.  _

“No you're not, stop the act,” Felix clicks his tongue disapprovingly at him. “You've rarely been fine. From the time we meet until now, there are strings of extended moments where you're not being fine. I daresay it's destructive, even, this behaviour of yours.”

“No it's not -” 

"You hold yourself to impossible standards, which I get,” Felix ignores his protest and stares ahead, sentence meaningful with slowly enunciated Korean. It's not simply a matter of speaking so his words are understood - Felix can manage that just fine on a regular basis. The deliberated and very standard Korean are there so that Jisung can  _ understand  _ the weight of the words Felix wants to convey. 

“ - But Han Jisung, you don't extend the same courtesy to others and expect your little scrawny self to bear the brunt of responsibility for an entire team of six. Excuse my language,” Felix pauses, eyes narrowed directly at him. Bits and pieces within him are dissected, laid out under the lens of the microscope. Felix picks and stares at the splinters of the specimen labelled Han Jisung, and delivers his observations in a detached and cool report. Subject: Han Jisung. Observations: feels too much, acts too little, holds too much inside that bursts at the seams.

“Excuse my language, but,” the ginger cat under the moonlight yowls, “ _ what a fucking dumb mindset, Jisung, the fuck were you thinking?” _

Jisung feels that he’s rightly at fault for drawing out the rare and very emotionally distressed English that Felix maintains to a strict minimum at only in front of Chan and Jimin, five minutes during morning and afternoon practices and at no other time, unless it is absolutely necessary. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells his feet. Meant to say it to Felix’s face, but he can’t sustain eye contact without apologising for everything.

“I don’t like your apologies,” Felix shuts his spiralling despairing episode, “they suggest that you’re somehow responsible for the entire fuckin’ planet and you try to emulate that. Do me a favour, Jisung -  _ don’t. _ ”

“What do I get out of it if I stop?”

“A clearer conscience. Better, more solid mental fortitude. If you keep letting yourself be weighed down by mistakes that aren’t your own and that are beyond your abilities to salvage, you will never rise up. Gravity wins by default. Your max potential isn’t being reached because all you see are failures, failures and failures.” Soles scrape the concrete slab under their feet, Felix’s soles barely brushing the ground because he’s a runt trying to talk like he’s a whole foot taller than he is right now. 

Having the truth handed to him with no trimmings and roundabout phrasings hurt - his own head shelters Jisung from fully recognising the denial he’s waist-deep in. 

“I'm not here to bring you any further down than the hole you already dug for yourself to bury all the talent you have and the person you are inside. I'm here to call you out for not letting any of the team help you out when they came to you today. That was dodgy of ya. It's even dodgier that you think we can all communicate by sheer brain power, because we don't. Talk, use your words. How else will you get better at playing and figuring out your feelings and problems if you keep it all inside.” 

Jisung opens his mouth to protest, but there are no lies in those words, no accusations and only facts.

“Jisung,” the sirens flare up again. Strike Three, _incoming._ “You don't win alone. That's not how it works.”

His arm falls away from Felix’s grip, slack with the shock of realisation. 

“I, uh. Wow. That - that is true. We play as a team. Hmm.”

The other boy rolls his eyes heavenward, as if Jisung is a special brand of stupid and no amount of eye rolling or lecturing will get to him.

“The team with the stronger six will be stronger. That is how it had always been and how it will always be. With one point someone else loses, you gain it back by scoring another, with your team,” Felix lets him go, looking at his bruised arms. “You are strong, but with everyone else, you can become stronger. Don't think you are in this alone, Jisungie. You're not. Don't think you have to cope everything onto yourself because your teammates might not to be there to back you up - there are five other people with you on the court, there are enough legs to run around and chase after one ball. The you in middle school is growing into the you in high school, right now, as a stronger player and a better teammate. There is no expectation that is heavier than your own. There is no shadow cast by Chan and Changbin that you have to fulfil. You are your own person, and right now you act like you are somebody else. Don't. It does you no good, and it does the team no good.”

Jisung feels the weight of his own guilt shifted away, leaving some wiggle room. They stop at his bus stop, the lights of cars zipping by blinding. 

Felix extends a spread open palm in front of his eyes, callused fingers pulled tight from the knuckles, as if he's ready for a toss.

“Hold my hand before I sing High School Musical at you,” the other boy seriously tells him, despite the easy edges to his voice. “Or hold it, whichever you need right now.”

“Why are you giving me a hand in need?” He snorts, but grips Felix’s proffered olive branch anyways. "And which song?"

“It's a symbolic gesture, Jisung, be more appreciative of my efforts. And obviously Can I have this dance."

“I think effort is you being nice to yourself and simultaneously a liar to my face. Great song choice though. I won't dance with you here though.”

The bus pulls up against the kerb. Felix had long let go of his hand, standing back for others to get off the bus and for Jisung to get on.

He salutes, all Hunger Games rebellion style, a soft twitch to his lips, and the edges of his eyes crinkle when Jisung pokes his tongue out in response to that lackadaisical farewell. 

Felix's rant plays back inside his head. He wills himself to not start bawling on the bus.

_ You don't win alone. That's not how it works. Do you think you're fighting by yourself?! You've got to be kidding me. If you think how you're doing equals how the team will do, then it won't be a team sport any longer! There's no one on our team who can beat an entire team one-on-one! However, there are six players on the volleyball court! The team with the better six is stronger, you moron!" _

And his personal favourite -  _ you can lean on us too, you know? We're here for you as well. We ought to give back what we take from you, the law of equivalent exchange and all that? _

“Felix,” he hides the traitorous sniffle behind his curled fist to his mouth, “you fucking weeb.”

  
  


Jimin cuts across at his dead sprint into Woojin's classroom, slapping two notebooks onto his chest.

“What,” he looks down. One is their shared team observation notebook, another is a blank book with a quote and photo of Doraemon.  _You shouldn’t be crying over those things that happened in the past. Think of this, why do you think your eyes are placed in front? That is for you to see what’s up ahead._

It's disgustingly well thought out and it makes him want to bail. 

“Happy birthday, brat,” she punches his arm with surprising tenderness. 

“You haven't told me what's this fo -” he gripes, but someone appears by his side and plucks the books out of his hands. 

“Good. You brought them over,” Woojin ahhs pleasantly. “Thanks, Jamie.”

“It wasn't anything,” she turns and walks away. “See you boys soon.”

“What's this for, Woojin-ssi?” He gestures to the Doraemon book, wondering which one between Chan and Changbin leaked his obsession with the anime public. 

“Team diary,” Woojin taps the book onto his forehead. “We're going to improve team communication by writing in this everyday. Everyone is playing. Everyone is going to get along and function like we share one brain cell. We gonna circulate some oxygen to the brain and keep it working at maximum capacity.”

Jisung slaps a hand over his mouth and nose, snuffling the laugh inside his throat. “You got that reference from Chan, didn't you?”

“Minho, actually,” Woojin drapes a loose arm around his neck. “We gotcha, kid, don't take it all on your shoulder, yeah? We'll go far with everyone, I assure you that.”

“Aiya, is everyone going to tell me off for feeling like I'm responsible for everything?” He teases back, hiding a face in Woojin's shirt.

“Probably, yeah,” the older boy clasps him in a tight grip, “breathe, relax, we got this.”

“Yeah,” he closes his eyes, “we really do.”  
  


Chan and Changbin tackle him simultaneously in twin blurs, hopping from inside a classroom, cackling as they steal him away, pulling him along to the club room. 

The team is there, whooping and throwing streamers at his face the minute he chokes out a  _ what is this _ . Coach endures an onslaught of raining confetti and glitter, courtesy of Hyunjin and Seungmin dumping cups upon cups onto his head, the two of them perched on a bench.

“Happy birthday!” Minho throws his arms around Jisung. “Join the cool kid's club of over 15s!”

“Ew,” Jisung complains, even though he loves every bit of the surprise. “Why all this?”

“Because you're reaching a milestone and we want to celebrate it with you,” Changbin pulls him closer, knocking their heads together.

“Obviously that's the only answer that you can reach,” Jisung echoes. “Even though I've been treating y'all like business associates working in the same firm with me.”

“The Jisung before we talked to him is the Jisung of the past who gets war flashbacks when he sees a bench and a missed receive,” Woojin pinches a cheek. 

“16 year old Jisung is someone who is our lame friend who tells bad puns and eats chocolate cheesecake at 3am and cries during Doraemon,” Chan takes another cheek, squeezing.

“Oh thank god, I thought he wasn't normal before, not eating and everything, but it just turns out he doesn't eat during the day,” Jeongin exhaled in faked relief. “Thanks for joining the ranks of dysfunctional humans, boy.”

Jisung doesn't know what comes over him. Maybe all the nagging found lodging inside his head. Maybe these people took a sledgehammer and shattered all his flawed reasoning and overwhelmed reaction to shards. 

“I actually identify as a dysfunctional bi, but if you insist on not assuming my orientation, that works too,” he replies loftily.

_ Okay never mind let's run. This is a boy's sports club, there is so much testosterone and toxic masculinity what was I thinking - _

“I told you he,” Hyunjin sneezes, “is one of us.” 

“Yeet,” Seungmin helpfully commentates, “and welcome to the non straight club, Han, we're all delightfully not straight here.”

The fear of rejection and abandonment is lifted off his shoulders. He sags against Woojin and Chan, arms still strong against his sides.

Changbin cheerfully adds in, “The only straights I have are my straight spikes.”

Jisung doesn't quite know whether he laughed or cried when he heard that, except that Woojin and Chan immediately let go of him to berate Changbin and Woojin lost a shoe that was taken off and chucked by a scrambling Minho.

Jeongin and Jimin helpfully stand by the side, recording everything.  

Brian enters, holding a wrapped parcel in his hand. A mock award, perhaps, or a photo frame. 

Jisung rips the packaging open and almost drops the shirt. Black with red accents, the number four emblazoned on the back. The ace’s number, on a libero shirt.

He turns to the team, words forming and dissolving on the tip of his tongue.

“Clearly,” Changbin lifts his eyebrows up and beyond his glasses’ frames, “the real ace here is you. You are the one and only ace. There had never been another ace more ace than you.”

“Irrefutably!” Hyunjin throws confetti at him.

“Unquestionably!” Seungmin accompanies him, for solidarity, chucking glitter his way.

“But,” his nails carve half moon crescents onto the material, “you’re mucking up the chronological ordering though? Older goes first, younger goes -”

Chan turns to him, smooshing his cheeks between his big palms. “Here at JYP, we don’t do things in the conventional way. It’s our gift for you, for always carrying the team on your back. You are the true ace we need and want, and we would be beyond honoured to have you guarding our backs.”

He stares still at the number four, closing and opening his mouth. Tears threaten to fall, words threaten to flee and emotions threaten to spill. 

“I, guys, this is too -”

Woojin wraps him in a second hug for the day. “Take the shirt, Jisungie.”

“Team huddle!” Felix cheers and piles onto their hug. One then turns to nine, and he feels like the Hydra rearing its ugly heads being torched aflamed by Heracles arriving at Lernae.

One day, he can slice off the final head of this reptilian beast, regenerating newer and older worries from within the unknown recesses of his mind. In this metaphor, he doesn’t quite know if he himself is the hero in the metaphor or it is the ragtag crew around him that is Heracles.

But does that matter, or does laughing at Minho slipping on glitter as he enters with cheesecake more important?

 

The swings creak with terrifying grind of metal on metal, but Jisung’s vaulting high and higher into the night sky. Night stretches out as far as he can see. He can hear the rickety squeals of cicadas and crickets and the dulcet tones of screaming, courtesy of Hyunjin kicking Seungmin down the slide, then systematically moving onto Minho.

“So?” Jimin hands him a container, chocolate cheesecake sitting inside. “How’s your 16th feeling?”

“Old,” he admits honestly, “and not that much different.”

“You give boring and honest answers,” Jimin’s face sours, “and they wonder why I don’t wanna talk to ya.”

Jisung’s face takes on a contemplative edge, mask and charisma switching naturally on. 

“No,” he breathes in, teeth flashing, lofty tone with an overdose of sarcasm. “I love everything everyone did for me today and I genuinely cannot thank you all enough for making this day meaningful for me -”

He deserves that shove that nearly shook him off the swing.

“Jimin, don't bully the birthday boy!” Chan nags from the seesaw, trying to buck Minho off his seat. 

“Is Felix coming or is he dead in a ditch somewhere?” Changbin looks around, tossing the ball back to Jeongin. The younger boy fumbles with the toss, switching to a fast overhand that ricocheted off the tips of his fingers, with Changbin yelling suggestions on how he can handle that one better.

“Stop volleyball-ing,” Seungmin groans, “it’s like 11.55, I’ve stopped all sport since a solid two hours ago.”

“That’s just quitter’s talk!” Minho yells back as he is thrown off his seat, Chan cackling in victory. “Bang Chan! Come here, come  _ right here I’m going to strangle you!”  _

Hyunjin fumbles with his phone from his perch on Woojin’s shoulders. Blue light flashes on and off, with his vicious little  _ nope, got it, ha ha!  _ bouncing around in the small park.

“He’s coming!” He turns on his flashlight and shines it directly onto Felix who’s walking up to them, shielding his eyes.

“Too bright, Hyunjin,” he tells the boy who gleefully ignores him. “And hello, birthday boy.”

“Nah,” Jisung shows him his phone, triumphant with his entire plan, “hello, birthday boy.”

“Happy birthday, you piece of shit,” Seungmin yells at him. “Channie-hyung, just apologise.”

“We came to wish you well, because Facebook messages are impersonal and too technologically advanced for some of us,” Woojin serenely delivers the news, all too calm even with a flailing Hyunjin on his shoulder. 

“By us he meant me,” Jisung chimes in, “I don’t have Facebook, nor do I know how to use it, so happy birthday, fetus.”

“Do we have to do the same thing for Seungmin now?” Jeongin wonders.

They all pretend to take a moment to think about it. Seungmin’s offended gasp almost sounds genuinely hurt.

“Ouch,” Felix giggles, winking at Seungmin, “happy early birthday, Minnie.”

“You’re too nice to him,” Changbin shakes his head at the orange-haired boy. “It’s not good for his ego. We gotta be toughen him up for the real world.”

“Oh shut up Seo Changbin,” Jimin throws a wad of paper at him. “What do you know, Mister I Cried During Astro Boy.”

“That’s confidential information!” Changbin squawks. “Now you die!”

Felix approaches him, ginger cat snoozing under the moonlight. 

“How’s your sixteenth feeling?”

He looks around, then back up at the moon. 

“Pretty alright, I say. I feel like a champ.”

“That’s good,” Felix laughs. “That’s really good to hear.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [wheezes] when will i get the third chapter out? will it be as long as this one, or god forbid, longer? will i ever stop being a coward and write actual sports playing in this fic, like, ever?
> 
> also what is the jisung pairing in this because i don't even know anymore. choose your own adventure, people, and let me know what can be endgame - i swear a lot of this is 'choose your own adventure'
> 
> what is continuity and can i get a truck full of that stuff please it's like i'm writing five different things in vsaguely the same universe
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/jarofactonbell), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny)


End file.
